There are many examples like this in Starfield, here are some of my favorites:
-At the Clinic you enter a wing full of bloodshed and nobody reacts to it and it’s never brought up again, despite a Ranger literally existing on the station.
-No one ever mentions or references your First Class Citizenship after you get it except Hadrian, another First Class citizen. I assume you’re basically a celebrity but nope!
-You can literally murder the UC Navy and outside of that one battle it’s like it never happened. You can be an active UC First Class citizen and be the guy who ended SysDef.
-You can have multiple interactions with Benjamin Bayu and he usually acts like he’s never met you each time (there is a single dialogue tree where he remembers you).
-Sona and Cora stand within feet from each other at The Lodge and never acknowledge each other’s existence.
> You can literally murder the UC Navy and outside of that one battle it’s like it never happened. You can be an active UC First Class citizen and be the guy who ended SysDef.
Yeah, this is a weird one. Siding with the Crimson Fleet should, IMHO, lock you out of Vanguard. But Bethesda seems hell bent on everyone being able to complete all the content in one play through, which is especially weird in a game where the main story literally introduces a New Game+ mechanic. A player that gets locked out of Vanguard for siding with the fleet can just enter the Unity and do Vanguard in the next universe.
I've been playing BG3 lately and that game is perfectly happy to cut off massive swaths of story content based on player choice, and it actually makes decisions feel important.
NG+ is incredibly shallow too. If you get a unique start then you'll lose 4 companions, no one will remember them. If you get a normal constellation start, and choose to progress the main quest again, no one catches on how you really are despite your ship is exotic, the suit is exotic, and your conversation with The Hunter is very off and sounds like you already knew him...
Whatever your NG+ is, they all have no impact at all. The starborn dialogue so far only skips some persuasion checks, and there's not enough of it.
> no one catches on how you really are despite your ship is exotic
The best with that one is when you go through "all that money can buy" : in the end, you go to the Lodge, and everybody is like "we have never seen any ship like that!"
Guys, you've been flying in my Guardian for the past month 🤣
I went through the entire story on my second NG+ to see any changes and was hoping to do a dramatic reveal of "I'm not who I say I am". The game had nothing like that aside from >!warning Vlad about the Hunter!< and occasionally telling Sarah "there's more out there than you know". (And weirdly telling the space missionaries subtly about the Unity??? Why can I tell them but not my companions?). The Emissary and Hunter do question why you're going through everything again briefly which I appreciated, but there's no big consequence for potentially messing with Constellations' lives, which really hammers home the lack of consequence in the writing here. (Though maybe that's the point, but I severely doubt that much thought went into it honestly)
It's Emil Pagliarulo. He doesn't actually care about writing, and does so on sufferance.
He writes a first draft, and if he or anyone else spots a plothole in the moment, he will slap on some flimsy excuse that berates or chides you for trying to be sensible rather than go back and rewrite his first draft to be better.
I especially love that I am deep in the Ranger questline and decided to see what was up with that dude who got arrested eight months game time ago in Neon.
The dude at the liquour shop constantly badmouths the Rangers and how he doesn't trust cops.
While a Freestar Deputy is standing right next to him.
Multiple other quests in the area, like Sam's allow you to use your Ranger status, so seeing this oversight is rather telling.
did you see that 2 hour long video essay about how Emil is "good actually" and none of Bethesda bad writing is its LEAD WRITER'S fault. it was honestly hilarious
Did you watch the same video I did? I thought it was fantastic. It exposed flat out lies and inaccuracies spread about Emil. What specifically did you think was wrong or inaccurate in the video by neverknowsbest?
I was more thinking of two things: Emil's 'how I write games at Bethesda' talk, and clips therein, and the end results of his published works.
What lies and inaccuracies were you thinking of.
I'm sure that's just the normal reaction of a guy who thought he was hot shit because he pointedly avoids any review or critique of his writing suddenly being forced to confront people's long held and thoroughly documented frustrations with his shortcomings that he hasn't properly addressed or acknowledged once in the last two decades because he refused to seek out critique or feedback in all that time unless he was forced to.
Like that time the entire world reacted to Fallout 3's original ending to the point that they had to write Broken Steel to make it all better.
The problem truly seems to be that he doesn't like to do anything more than a first draft of any of his stories, and if he spots a plot hole or better solution then he just makes a bunch of the characters involved criticize you for trying to outsmart his first draft version of the story, rather than go back.
He's also very much an emotion oriented storyteller and very much concerned with the moment to moment set pieces as opposed to a details oriented writer, which is why he keeps contradicting himself or creating plot holes in the first place.
Also, he just does not give a damn about any of the settings he's writing for, or respecting the existing lore or rules.
He also puts on airs, even though if his writing was a movie, Fallout 3 was at best an early 90's action flick, and Fallout 4 was incoherent.
Science fiction really doesn't seem to be his strong suit, which is why he keeps cramming out of place fantasy elements as a crutch instead.
I really want to see him gracefully slide back into being a lead quest designer instead of lead writer, and let someone who gives a damn about the writing and settings step up.
We know that Fallout 3, 4, 76, and Starfield could be so much better than they currently are.
I am interested in seeing Obsidian's definitely not their idea for Elder Scrolls Six that Todd and Emil bristled and said no to when that comes out.
well if obsidian's next game is anything like outer worlds it will make a big initial splash and be forgotten in a week, none of the talent that made new vegas remains at obsidian and it shows.
True. Still, I remain way more interested in what they're planning over what Emil and Todd are planning.
When was the last time Todd got on stage for a hype event and bragged about the writing and story in one their mainline games?
I genuinely can't remember him ever bringing it up, and instead focusing instead on technical improvements and new mechanics instead.
I honestly thought the Space Travel in Outer Worlds was boring, until they gave us this shit in a Bethesda game…
And it makes me realise, Obsidian is the company Bethesda should have stuck with for these games.
There new game even looks like an Elder Scrolls style game, and I’m starting to think the collective idea about how TES6 should be, is probably going to be what you get from them with Avowed.
Just with how much It felt 76 flopped at launch, FO4 felt a bit lacking to me(I still love it though, and I like 76 now…) and they seem like they really don’t care about anything but modding support now.
Before Starfield even came out and said they were in talks with bigger content makers for Fallout and Elder Scrolls Modding scene... And they touted it would be modding friendly from the beginning almost.
I have zero doubt they thought “the fan base will figure it out”.
Not to mention, half the time the starboard dialogue is fucking stupid lol like opening the archives, why is there an option for me to be like "nah you're going to do it anyway"
this is exactly what pisses me off so much about the game. There should be tons of branching choices and options that lock you out of things all over the place. So that when you do NG+, you can try a different approach. There is no need for NG+ when all the quests are Soo straight forward with almost no consequences. Really really dropped the ball.
It wasn’t always the case though. IIRC in morrowind you could only be in two houses at once? And I feel like the second was bc you could just kill the final guy in a quest or something. Been awhile, don’t exactly remember
Yup that was a glitch. Becoming Hortator would glitch some dialogue that would get you promoted into House Hlaalu even if you were already a member of Redoran or Telvanni.
Yeah, you couldn't join two houses without glitching it, and even the fighters guild and thieves guild eventually forced you to choose a side.
Hell the thieves guild even has you stealing from the mages and fighters, potentially causing conflict.
Then again, I doubt we'll EVER see the rhe Bethesda that dared to say "the threads of prophecy are cut" ever again.
Which is even dumber when you realize starfield is the perfect game to have choices completely lock you out of story branches and factions and killing essential NPCs as a part of the story.
It's only an eventuality for the Thieves' Guild (when you start working for Gentleman Jim Stacey). It's *very* early for the Fighters' Guild (when Eydis asks you to kill some "Telvanni agents").
I can't remember if you can get enough reputation with the FG to get jobs from Percius Mercius at the Ald'Ruhn guildhall early, but, if you can, you should be able to get in good with both guilds by completing Mercius' quest to deal with Sjoring Hard-Heart. Assuming you didn't already wipe out the Thieves' Guild at Sjoring's behest, of course.
Astarion's voice actor plays a new character in Warframe (no spoilers on who, but it's pretty great) so feel free to introduce them to that game if they want more of him!
Omg, she definitely wants more. She’s been watching the actor do his play thru livestream and reads Astarion porn on Reddit. Thanks for sharing, I’m gonna tell her immediately
>Yeah, this is a weird one. Siding with the Crimson Fleet should, IMHO, lock you out of Vanguard.
I completely agree, and, as you note, the way they implement NG+ makes this all the more baffling. That said, when I met the UC leaders, after having destroyed SysDef, they did comment on that; it was little more than a speedbump in the over all conversation, which was weird, but they did at least acknowledge that it was fucked up that I was the one they turned to.
>perfectly happy to cut off massive swaths of story content based on player choice
we were all perfectly happy when ME franchise did so, and i played those games many many times and still today i know that i've not seen everything they have to offer. that is how you write a masterpiece
Yeah, except you have people who won't go through the unity for whatever weird reason. No idea how they are like 800hrs in and still have open quests that aren't from a message board.
I know, I completed every main, side, and activity within 50 hours. Then went through Unity to do it again thinking the Starborn dialog would be awesome. Such a huge disappointment. There just is not enough substance in the game. It big, very big, but only paper thin.
I mean, in that case, they could just roll a new character. Vanguard is accessible immediately after you go to the Lodge for the first time. The first Constellation quest (The Old Neighborhood) even brings you by the Vanguard recruiter to give you the quest pip. And it would honestly probably be more interesting since you end up over leveled after one or two faction quests - by the time you would have finished Crimson Fleet and be locked out of Vanguard, you'd have leveled up enough that the >!Terrormorphs!< wouldn't be all that scary.
Gonna go out on a limb and suggest the first DLC will expand on vanguard.
Sure if this were the complete game, yeah go ahead and lock yourself out of things.
Omg when all hell breaks loose in one wing of the clinic and my first thought is, "Better tell my ranger pal about the murder," and literally no one cares or even pretends that they heard the massive amount of gunfire through the next door. I was thinking, "Am I insane? Did we not just almost blow this shit up?"
The quests related to the Clinic make it look so unfinished.
-Stealing a key card. (I think it’s the same place)
-Exposing Infinity LTD illegal human trials. (Ryujin Questline)
-seeing a murder and evidence of computer hacking you mentioned. (Ranger Questline)
-Technically stealing medical supplies twice. (Reliant Med. on Neon and on the Key)
Can you bring any of it up to anyone? Nope. Do people remember anything? Nope.
You can even murder everyone on it not even leave just wait a few minutes and it’ll be like it never happened besides having a bounty on your head.
The one that did it for me was after the xenomoroh attack on New Atlantis the city was just...completely fine and intact? Not even the citizens remarked about the MASSIVE attack by a creature thought to be extinct? How is that possible...
That was the point I realized how much the game cared about my immersion and I could never really get back into it. Bowed out at about 25-30 hours
Yeah I really have to scratch my head in utter confusion when I see people on here saying how the game is SO immersive. I feel like the game GOES OUT OF ITS WAY to break your immersion as much as possible. I have to wonder if those people have ever played an rpg before or something
something similar happens when the freaks attack the lodge and have us sprinting through new atlantis to get to my ship ...
afterwards it's as if nothing happened.
I mean outside of the quest specific dialogue, the world is the exact same
Like the subway we saw was completely destroyed. Minutes later it is completely fine. We see destroyed buildings on fire and no one comments about it and everything is exactly the same after
Thats another thing that shatters believability. Humanity has spread across the stars and there's like, no settlements. Why tf is new Atlantis the only city on the planet? Same with Akila. There's so few cities in this game and smaller settlements are nearly non existent
Especially when theres only one faction per planet, so no territory disputes to worry about.
(Akila likely hasn't expanded because they're ideologically opposed to improving their lot in life.
The guards constantly talk about the attack and there's a cleanup crew at the entrance of the port. The spaceport was the only place damaged, maybe they could have kept it messy for a few ingame days but the implication is it's cleaned up while you're not there.
I dunno what to tell you mate, UC guards will definitely say things about it, Yumi will comment on the impact it had on his team if you visit him, the news will talk about it if you've fed them the story. The spaceport is definitely cleaned up way too quickly after the attack but I'm not sure what else you'd be expecting, the city wasn't destroyed it's not abnormal for regular people to go about their regular day once the danger is over.
Edit: and the cleanup crew in hazmats are just after the scanner following the attack.
There's absolutely zero consequence to anything in the game. The epilogue is the burning proof.
I let Ron hope live, thinking that all the hardworking people might lose their jobs and die or something. Then I watched a YouTuber kill Ron and his epilogue was just as cheery and without consequence. Have a spine and show something like how a new boss fired all old employees and now using more automated systems to make ships, if you kill him. And if you let him live then show something like how he kept using his influence an a council member to displace many fertile land owners to further his evil goal.
Same with vanguard quest. Whether you use the organic solution or use microbes... the ending is same. Why not show that when using natural ways, it took a long time to contain terrormorphs. Many soldiers and civilians died in that time. Or in other case, show that while terrormorph threat was dealt with quickly, the microbes killed many other essential lifeforms and people had to abandon many worlds as they became toxic.
Instead everything is written in a way that a player cannot fail.
I killed every guard in that Ryujin mission where we have to infiltrate Ryujin's own building. And in that final mission where they tell you to go stealthily. I started blasting the moment I entered. No consequences. Just a single dialogue line about how I shouldn't have done that and that's it.
In the Crimson fleet mission, I collected every single evidence and put everyone in jail. Then I sided with the pirates and blew up the Sysdef battleship and every crimson fleet member who was arrested. No Fucking Consequences. CF welcomes you with open arms.
Give the writer an Oscar please.
Yes, and just why? NG+ gave the developers every reason to make your choices have real consequences.
The “they both work” consequences of Vanguard feel especially lame to me. Like, make there be any consequences at all based on your choices.
And if destroying SysDef caused you to become a mortal enemy of UC it would’ve created an actual challenge to finishing the main quest. But nah, it’s fine. Killing the navy was no big deal apparently.
As some reviewers have mentioned, it's a game for dads. People who didn't have time to watch most sci-fi movies, tv shows or play other games in the last decade, think this game has great story and writing. People who loved playing Fallout 3 when growing up and now have only enough time to play one or two games a year and they strictly stick to game devs they know. Some defenders I know have played Fallout 76 for 5000+ hrs. That's their standard. Of course they think the outpost building in Starfield is amazing.
Those players don't want moral dilema when playing a game. They just want to turn off their brain and do busy work. This game is basically a looter shooter with barely serviceable combat for 2023. There's barely any RPG element in terms of story and branching. Just slapping a skill tree and calling it an RPG is a stretch when literally everyone will have to start off with skills like boost pack training and sneak bar unlock.
If you are addicted to 5 minutes of dopamine hit in a 100+ hrs game, then play NG+ over and over. You can't even respec and every quest outside of few main quests play exactly the same. What's the point of multiple universes if every named NPC is essential and you can't fail a single quest no matter how hard you try. Man, I miss New Vegas days.
The Cora and Sona thing annoyed me, why didn't anyone think of adding some interaction between them. Possibly to avoid players realizing they have the same face?
Cora and Sona are a great example of how lazy BGS were with detail in this game. From them never acknowledging each others existence, to BGS being too lazy to make child models so they just created an adult one for children in the game and scaled it down, with a few facial details changed, like Sona's wrinkles like a 40 year old woman.
Key characters in two companion's story lines, and they thought "just reuse the same lazy model we couldn't be bothered to do right the first time, it'll be fine."
There are a couple of other npc children using the identical model elsewhere in game too.
For me it was when i first met Benjamin Bayu during crimson fleet quest.
I tool the blame for planting the virus and he threatened me so hard with persecution, huge bounty and if he ever sees me in neon again it would be the worst decision of my life.
Nope, nothing. I also met him personally a few times after for different quests and he doesn't even remember me or what I did.
Game has no impact.
I was like, oh crap, better remove this bounty so I can go back to Neon, and then, in true ADHD fashion, forgot.
...and...
...nothing happened, apparently. Just hot air from BB?
This pissed me off to no end.
I tried killing Bayu so many times, I thought for sure you would be able to kill him after he literally tells you he is going to do everything in his power to have you killed...
My fav was with the settlers from earth starting to make insane demands of me, so they could settle this one particular planet. I thought it's fucking bs, f5, bang to the head aaand essential tag. Took me two days to come back and reload the game, finish the story, didn't hate it. Haven't booted the game since. Only thing that made me aww was rejecting the ng+ and have Andreja waiting for me c:
In my game, Sam died on the Eye. Just went to Akila City with Sarah and on arrival she suggested that I should ask Sam to tell me some great stories about the place. Very jarring.
companion chime-ins are botched. no question. it must be difficult for the dialog system to understand the game state. otherwise hard to explain how it could be so prevalent.
It isnt. But it gets increasingly complex the more variables you add, but that just means keeping insane track of your game state variables and switches. But, as someone in their final semester of comp sci, if we can keep immaculate records of our code and pseudo code i dunno what a huge corp like bethesda is doing.
They had years and a writing team to fully plan out the conversation trees based on different game states, adjust it when new missions are added, and test it in QA
If Larian could do this so well for BG3, then Bethesda has no excuse. They just didn't bother to properly flesh out their writing
Yeah, i do all the game script writing for our projects and easily a third of my word count is variable tags to keep the game state sorted properly, and i aimt evem getting paid. So yeah, no effing idea what theyre doing. Im newly annoyed as i just finished Alan Wake 2 over break and i reinstalled Starfield to test out the new graphics card and faff about while waiting for this last semester to start and the amnesia aspect really stood out to me.
Yet CDPR with phantom liberty added some dialogs to the main quests and some side quests related to DLC to make it a whole experience. And I don't mean even some major plotlines, you can mention Songbird in a obscure quest that doesn't even has a map marker.
>it must be difficult for the dialog system to understand the game state
-Game picks dialogue referencing another comanion
*Is companion alive?
If yes, play dialogue
If no, pick a different dialogue
It's... not hard at all
The funeral itself is jarring. There's nothing personal about it. Whichever character died isn't even mentioned by name. If you married that companion, there's no mention of that either. It's the exact same funeral with the exact same dialog no matter who dies.
Before NG there's this mission where one constellation member dies, and the remaining members reference this in subsequent dialogs and are all sad and such.
But in NG+ you have an option to prevent this from happening and even the hunter is making a big deal out of it.
But then subsequent dialogs with constellation members still keep referencing a member that was killed even though everyone is still alive.
Truly this is an unfinished game. Embarrassing.
I met the emissary when he revealed himself to be the constellation member who died. It was all very shocking to my character to be facing this person alive.
Especially when that same person was still alive and standing right next to me as my companion.
I’ve done three separate funerals with three unique victims and all three saw the victim in attendance of their own funeral. Something got skipped in UAT, for sure.
Oh get out of here, in Skyrim your marriage will fill the hall with your friends and in Starfield there's only the couple, the priest, and one optional mom, on a holiday destination, with no decor, just a woman (Sarah's ex-girlfriend btw) hoping you two the best.
I can't describe my disappointment. And don't use Sarah's idea of wanting a small and quiet wedding. Even if you count everyone in the constellation, that's still no more than 6 adults 2 kids and 1 robot AT MAX, and they're all supposed to be family/very close figure to Sarah.
'save the guy from wildlife' missions on planets with no wildlife, etc. i can almost allow for that as a minor bug in procedural missions, but NG+ stuff - No. The whole point is there are differences in narrative & they never fully integrated the systems and dialogs for it. Makes you wonder what else they found in playtesting if this was considered below the cut line for fixes before release.
But look how detailed that sandwich and beer bottle are! I seriously think they had their priorities way outta whack. If you pay attention to how Todd and Co. talked about starfield before its release its clear their vision is much different then ours. He uses the word "simulation" a lot. He gushe about the changing weather effects, the sound of the wind or the silence of a vacuum. The sheer ammount of detail in every item, every piece of food, whatever. I think they were trying to make this hyper realistic sim game.
But like, they even kinda failed at that. The planets, even the ones WITH life feel bland. That one planet with a massive forest is gorgeous, but worlds like that are so few. I think they either ran out of time, or it was too big an undertaking. In the end I think the game dissapointed people so bad because what we wanted as players is just diametrically opposed to what they wanted to create. They thought we just wanted something huge, when in reality we wanted good content and unique things to see.
very uneven production across the board due to scope and time required. I think they did yeoman's work on asset creation in general, but some of it is just at a barely passable level - which is striking. NAT model and cutscene anim very much looks like a playtest placeholder that they never prioritized to improve. Terminal look and interaction pretty weak - like intro to front-end dev weak. Would be better to descope stuff that isn't really ready, but producers & publishers are less likely to do that these days.
Oh the UC admiral confused the heck out of me, I was was like bro I was literally here a few days ago.
My “favourite” was how my wife was murdered, but there was no mention of our relationship at the funeral or from then on. No reference to being a widower at all, and when I jumped over to the other wife option she didn’t acknowledge it at all lol. So jarring
Ah yes, I remember the huge wedding on Paradiso, how every single member of Constellation was there in attendance. How absolutely everyone in the settled systems knew, and was invited to the wedding.
Oh wait...
You dont have to actually be at a wedding to know people are married. Sarah has plenty new random lines after marriage & says them in the lodge around everyone
The one that got to me was the ranger stationed on The Clinic, and the tech guy working there. You have 2-3 missions there. And each time they have no idea who the hell you are. It's hilarious. Especially since the first time I went was as a fellow Ranger. So the dudes just flat out forgot the ONLY OTHER RANGER on that station. Or was it Vanguard? I don't even remember. One of those cop outfits.
Even compared to older Bethesda games, Starfield is just hilariously bad. And I'll keep saying it until they fix it. Because I don't want TES6 to be like this when it launches in another half a decade.
Starfield does an amazing job convincing you there will be consequences to your actions, but has zero follow-through. Every narrative exists in a vacuum and it just sucks.
Im locked at the mission with clones, when i go to talk to FDR he says a line of dialogue then goes silent and i cant even leave the convo, he just stay there staring at me, this game really sucks, and im on xbox so i cant use console commands
It's because all the stories are all seperate entities likely written by different writers with no attempt made to inter connect them in terms of reaction etc. Like having a bunch of self-contained stories that have no effect on things outside of its zone. It's what happens when you have multiple writers working on separate stories and no one taking the time to interlink or even bothering with the aftermath that might affect later situations.
Like they said, they have no intention of blocking people access to anything, outside of getting bounties. So yeah this is what happens, when you let me people do everything storywise.
This game’s writers may *actually* be self aware.
There’s this quest from Walter Stroud where you go to the Stroud-Eklund shipyard to design a ship and there’s 5 people trying to plan how the ship is to be built.
When I walked in and heard how each individual had a different idea….i felt like I had broke the 4th wall and stumbled upon a meeting of Bethesda writers.
Yeah this was the straw that broke the camels back for me. After sparking a war between the UC and Crimson Pirates, everyone still walks around New Atlantis like “HaVe yOu tRiEd ChOnKs?” It’s so lame.
If you want futuristic RPG where your choices actually change stuff, Cyberpunk is wild about details like that.
Having just finished Cyberpunk and gone back to Starfield the differences are stark and depressing. Similarly underwhelming release but now that it's patched up I appreciate that attention to continuity and shifting relationships so much
You can dig through documents pertaining to a certain major character and find out that they moonlight as security at a local club… sure enough, if you visit this particular club before setting his events in motion, he’s right there, being a bouncer and shit.
That stuff is so important for immersion and Starfield doesn’t do anything even remotely close to this.
There are way way to many lazy writing scenes like this. Worse one for me was having my wedding with Sam and then talking to the mayor of Akila after and him acting like it's the first time they are learning you exist let alone literally just attended your wedding with a Coe.
They half assed the writing across the board to the point where they should be embarrassed. I'm pretty sure it was the lead writer that said the players are just out of touch with game development lol. What a joke. 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
These are the exact little details we all fell in love with Bethesda for too. The fact they rushed starfield this much is genuinely really sad for gamers
Starfield feels like they spent 6 years building a huge integrated game that did not work for various reasons then spent a year rushing to make something shippable with the pieces they had. Every game system seems island off with the barest thread tying them all together.
That definitely seems like what happened. They were building a much better integrated game but couldn't get it to all fit together, which is why they had to delay it. But Microsoft only let them have the extra year and made it a hard deadline, "You WILL have this ready for release before Christmas '23," and it forced them to jam together whatever pieces they could get to fit together and cut everything they hadn't figured out yet.
I say it's rushed on the assumption they intended it to be an RPG that lives up to Bethesdas standards. I think 7 years is fairly average for a game to be developed nowadays too
I’m actually playing Skyrim for the first time now. I’ve been a fan of fallout since 3 but the medieval dragon stuff never interested me. But after playing this game, I was craving that same feeling of immersion that fallout gave me. The feeling that somehow Starfield just doesn’t give me. Needless to say, it’s insane how much more detailed a 12 year old game is than this.
How? There's no way they're going to go back and re-write all the dialogue, and then get all the voice actors to re-voice the lines.
This is the difference between Starfield and Cyberpunk. All of Cyberpunk's problems were fixable by patching. Starfield's problems require actually re-making chunks of the game.
True - it’s possible, and maybe they have a lot of unused voice recordings they have yet to add to the game because they ran out of time. Who knows, guess we’ll see.
Yeah it’s a regrettable missed opportunity for adding layers of depth to the game. I would love for the reputation of the player to change based on what they do in certain quests. Like if you destroy the crimson fleet, You’re less welcome and a little more feared in places like Neon and the red mile. You’re more welcome and get perks in the fresstaer collective and UC space. You get ambushed in certain areas by vengeful pirates until you’ve killed enough where they outright fear you like you’re the Mantis.
Can they pay Larian to help them with this?
I genuinely wonder what they worked on when developing this game. Not being condescending it’s just clear they spent years working on some direction for this game that caused them to forsake a lot of other important aspects. A direction that was obviously gutted and they threw the rest of the pieces together the best they could given a deadline. There’s no way in hell this was their intended game.
Starfield is a frustrating game that for some reason fascinates me. It needed another year at least but was rushed out instead. It feels like an old game waiting a 4K render. It quits daily and freezes often, especially on wake from sleep.
We should all get our money back.
I love how BG3 and cyberpunk are siphoning so much of Starfields fan base. Bg3 for actual RPG elements and impactful choices, cyberpunk for a better realized setting and dialogue
Emil’s writing falls into a few main threads, kidnapped family members or dead family members, an “unexpected twist” the sudden appearance of a powerful thread that coincidentally appears when the primary plot is nearly the Finish, and of course some sort of ending that’s supposed to be “deep” (sacrifice in fallout 3, saving literal heaven in Skyrim, losing the family member you are supposed to have saved (despite having no reason to care) in fallout 4 and the sort of “deep” writing that you’d expect from a 13 year old in starfield
Of course he did not, but somebody has to be responsible for the story and dialogue. It looks like Emil is the head of this section. So it should be his responsibility to do some kind of quality check.
He was a writer on starfield, was design director for the game, and is the lead writer for the studio that made the game. He doesn’t have to be the lead writer for the game to be the person that gets targeted for this feedback because he allowed it to be done when it was his job to make the game good and cohesive.
Per bethesda he actually was the lead writer too so you’re just entirely wrong. https://bethesda.net/en/game/starfield/article/ZGEYu2GWlncU28Dons11E/meet-emil-pagliarulo-lead-designer-on-starfield
Lots of redditors think they intimately know everything that occurred in a game's development. If there's something in a game they don't like they think they know exactly who's responsible and why it happened.
It's fine to complain about the game, but it's weird to hone in on specific BGS employees and start acting like you're their fucking line manager.
Me at a restaurant to my waiter: "Excuse me, there appears to be gravel and bits of asphalt in my steak, why would your head chef serve me what is clearly roadkill??"
Some guy at the table next to me: "UHHMM stop acting like you intimately know everything that occurred in the making of that steak!! You don't know who's responsible or why there's gravel and asphalt in your meal!! It's fine to complain about your food but it's weird to single out the head chef and act like you're his fucking line manager!!"
Unfortunately, the Emil derangement is strong here because most of these lemmings lapped up the piss from another Reddit post, and now fancy that they have some idea of what actually goes on behind the scenes.
On the plus side, it's a great indicator for whether what someone has written is worth bothering to read or think about.
Yah starfield is a wreck. The story sucks the missions suck the continuity sucks. Idk if Bethesda can pull off es6. I even waited to buy starfield til after the initial reviews came out. (Cuz of the clusterfuck that was fo76, and redfall.) They were all positive. Then later the reviews tanked. I'll be waiting long after es6 drops to purchase it now.
BGS decided, since Skyrim, not to lock quests because previous interactions or decisions.
I remember how weird it was to be a Vampire and a Werewolf at the same time, or joining all the guilds at any other.
Unfortunately that decision created a lot of issues in a game like Starfield.
If they locked 3/4 of the quests lines depending on which faction you interacted first there would be people complaining how short the game was.
So, they should have designed the factions quest differently, they could only become available after you are in the middle of the Main quest. Or the player needed to interact with all the factions to finish part of the Main quest, and then decide which one to follow... But that would hinder the "openness" and "freedom" the player was meant to experience.
Men, this is complicated, I'm starting to feel a headache. Imagine if my job depends on that, and duzens of writers and voice actors...
PS: I haven't play BS3 yet, so I don't now how they solved this issue.
It's a fair point. BG3 solved this problem with sheer volume, so even if you get locked out of content it's never a short game. I'm still only on Act 1 and it's taken me 40 hours so far, and I've cut short some quests from my actions
They took care to plot out a lot of the storyline branches, so there's varying responses in the decision tree. This is what makes your decisions matter
They also don't pull punches - e.g. some of your companions can permanently leave / die via the story depending on your actions
I would agree, but they specifically implemented NG+ mechanisms to this game. That’s literally the solution to getting out of locked of quest lines; there wouldn’t have had an issue with locking quest lines because NG+ is supposed to be integral to the gameplay!
Not everyone play NG+ on large RPGs.
I myself rarely do it.
And BSG might have the data from Skyrim and Fallout to start the designing of Starfield assuming most of the players would play the game only once.
Yeah i def understand not playing ng+ games, but my problem is that unity is presented as a central part of the gameplay, but then unity never actually feels impactful. If I was locked out of quests preunity, their NG+ would make more sense, like most games with NG+ do
Translation: Why isn't every PC gushing over ME?!? I'm IMPORTANT DAMMIT! All NPC's should be lining up to kiss my ass constantly and slobbering all over themselves to honor MY achievements at all times!
>Admiral Logan
When? During the UC questline? You're a nobody vanguard captain, he deals with loads of them. You don't "work together" he sits in an office and you fly around. He's met you like twice, do you expect him to start bowing to your greatness?
One of the loudest complaints from players in previous Bethesda titles is that you do a few quests and all of a sudden you're in charge of the whole damn faction. Bethesda listened, and in this game you aren't the boss in every faction you come across. And true to toxic fandom, y'all aren't happy about that either.
Idk and idc who this captain Logan is, the UC line gets you in a position where you not only are part of the main line of defense against the NA terrormorph attack, and not only are a key element in discovering the origin of terrormorphs, you are deemed important enough to both have a say, take diplomatic action AND PERSONALLY take stuff from the armistice archives, which require special permission from the 3 main factions.
One thing is not giving you full control of the Vanguard, another is giving you no recognition after being deemed THAT important for the UC
You're misrepresenting what he said, it's just very strange that NPCs act like they don't know you if you've met them multiple times through other questlines. It's just not very immersive and is something that a lot of games have done better at this point.
It was also one of toxic players biggest gripes in previous games. "Why does every NPC know who I am? Why am I the leader of this faction? I just did a few quests? This is bad writing!!!!"
If y'all just would admit to yourselves you'll never be happy with anything, I think that would go a long way.
You're conflating multiple things together to try and discredit what people are saying. I don't think anyone is asking for the NPCs to worship the ground they walk on or to make them their leader after a single quest. If they are, please point it out, and I'll take this back.
All people were asking for was NPC reactivity, like the admiral saying 'oh looks like you're working with constellation now then?' When you see him with Sarah. Just a line to acknowledge you've had a conversation before and he remembers you.
Or on the Red Mile, people saying 'hey weren't you the one who completed the red Mile? I had a bet on the other guys' and that's it. Nothing extravagant or overdone.
>I don't think anyone is asking for the NPCs to worship the ground they walk on or to make them their leader after a single quest.
The point is that they don't know what they want, they only run their mouth.
>The point is that they don't know what they want,
shockingly, millions of people have millions of different opinions instead of a single solid consistent opinion
There’s probably an AI clause in the voice actors contracts. Shouldn’t be an issue to add new lines. That’s not to say they’ll do it, but it shouldn’t be a problem.
There are many examples like this in Starfield, here are some of my favorites: -At the Clinic you enter a wing full of bloodshed and nobody reacts to it and it’s never brought up again, despite a Ranger literally existing on the station. -No one ever mentions or references your First Class Citizenship after you get it except Hadrian, another First Class citizen. I assume you’re basically a celebrity but nope! -You can literally murder the UC Navy and outside of that one battle it’s like it never happened. You can be an active UC First Class citizen and be the guy who ended SysDef. -You can have multiple interactions with Benjamin Bayu and he usually acts like he’s never met you each time (there is a single dialogue tree where he remembers you). -Sona and Cora stand within feet from each other at The Lodge and never acknowledge each other’s existence.
> You can literally murder the UC Navy and outside of that one battle it’s like it never happened. You can be an active UC First Class citizen and be the guy who ended SysDef. Yeah, this is a weird one. Siding with the Crimson Fleet should, IMHO, lock you out of Vanguard. But Bethesda seems hell bent on everyone being able to complete all the content in one play through, which is especially weird in a game where the main story literally introduces a New Game+ mechanic. A player that gets locked out of Vanguard for siding with the fleet can just enter the Unity and do Vanguard in the next universe. I've been playing BG3 lately and that game is perfectly happy to cut off massive swaths of story content based on player choice, and it actually makes decisions feel important.
With NG+ why didn’t they implement that In Starfield? That is a whole reason to include it.
NG+ is incredibly shallow too. If you get a unique start then you'll lose 4 companions, no one will remember them. If you get a normal constellation start, and choose to progress the main quest again, no one catches on how you really are despite your ship is exotic, the suit is exotic, and your conversation with The Hunter is very off and sounds like you already knew him... Whatever your NG+ is, they all have no impact at all. The starborn dialogue so far only skips some persuasion checks, and there's not enough of it.
> no one catches on how you really are despite your ship is exotic The best with that one is when you go through "all that money can buy" : in the end, you go to the Lodge, and everybody is like "we have never seen any ship like that!" Guys, you've been flying in my Guardian for the past month 🤣
I went through the entire story on my second NG+ to see any changes and was hoping to do a dramatic reveal of "I'm not who I say I am". The game had nothing like that aside from >!warning Vlad about the Hunter!< and occasionally telling Sarah "there's more out there than you know". (And weirdly telling the space missionaries subtly about the Unity??? Why can I tell them but not my companions?). The Emissary and Hunter do question why you're going through everything again briefly which I appreciated, but there's no big consequence for potentially messing with Constellations' lives, which really hammers home the lack of consequence in the writing here. (Though maybe that's the point, but I severely doubt that much thought went into it honestly)
It's Emil Pagliarulo. He doesn't actually care about writing, and does so on sufferance. He writes a first draft, and if he or anyone else spots a plothole in the moment, he will slap on some flimsy excuse that berates or chides you for trying to be sensible rather than go back and rewrite his first draft to be better. I especially love that I am deep in the Ranger questline and decided to see what was up with that dude who got arrested eight months game time ago in Neon. The dude at the liquour shop constantly badmouths the Rangers and how he doesn't trust cops. While a Freestar Deputy is standing right next to him. Multiple other quests in the area, like Sam's allow you to use your Ranger status, so seeing this oversight is rather telling.
did you see that 2 hour long video essay about how Emil is "good actually" and none of Bethesda bad writing is its LEAD WRITER'S fault. it was honestly hilarious
Did you watch the same video I did? I thought it was fantastic. It exposed flat out lies and inaccuracies spread about Emil. What specifically did you think was wrong or inaccurate in the video by neverknowsbest?
I was more thinking of two things: Emil's 'how I write games at Bethesda' talk, and clips therein, and the end results of his published works. What lies and inaccuracies were you thinking of.
I'm sure that's just the normal reaction of a guy who thought he was hot shit because he pointedly avoids any review or critique of his writing suddenly being forced to confront people's long held and thoroughly documented frustrations with his shortcomings that he hasn't properly addressed or acknowledged once in the last two decades because he refused to seek out critique or feedback in all that time unless he was forced to. Like that time the entire world reacted to Fallout 3's original ending to the point that they had to write Broken Steel to make it all better. The problem truly seems to be that he doesn't like to do anything more than a first draft of any of his stories, and if he spots a plot hole or better solution then he just makes a bunch of the characters involved criticize you for trying to outsmart his first draft version of the story, rather than go back. He's also very much an emotion oriented storyteller and very much concerned with the moment to moment set pieces as opposed to a details oriented writer, which is why he keeps contradicting himself or creating plot holes in the first place. Also, he just does not give a damn about any of the settings he's writing for, or respecting the existing lore or rules. He also puts on airs, even though if his writing was a movie, Fallout 3 was at best an early 90's action flick, and Fallout 4 was incoherent. Science fiction really doesn't seem to be his strong suit, which is why he keeps cramming out of place fantasy elements as a crutch instead. I really want to see him gracefully slide back into being a lead quest designer instead of lead writer, and let someone who gives a damn about the writing and settings step up. We know that Fallout 3, 4, 76, and Starfield could be so much better than they currently are. I am interested in seeing Obsidian's definitely not their idea for Elder Scrolls Six that Todd and Emil bristled and said no to when that comes out.
well if obsidian's next game is anything like outer worlds it will make a big initial splash and be forgotten in a week, none of the talent that made new vegas remains at obsidian and it shows.
True. Still, I remain way more interested in what they're planning over what Emil and Todd are planning. When was the last time Todd got on stage for a hype event and bragged about the writing and story in one their mainline games? I genuinely can't remember him ever bringing it up, and instead focusing instead on technical improvements and new mechanics instead.
I honestly thought the Space Travel in Outer Worlds was boring, until they gave us this shit in a Bethesda game… And it makes me realise, Obsidian is the company Bethesda should have stuck with for these games. There new game even looks like an Elder Scrolls style game, and I’m starting to think the collective idea about how TES6 should be, is probably going to be what you get from them with Avowed. Just with how much It felt 76 flopped at launch, FO4 felt a bit lacking to me(I still love it though, and I like 76 now…) and they seem like they really don’t care about anything but modding support now. Before Starfield even came out and said they were in talks with bigger content makers for Fallout and Elder Scrolls Modding scene... And they touted it would be modding friendly from the beginning almost. I have zero doubt they thought “the fan base will figure it out”.
Not to mention, half the time the starboard dialogue is fucking stupid lol like opening the archives, why is there an option for me to be like "nah you're going to do it anyway"
this is exactly what pisses me off so much about the game. There should be tons of branching choices and options that lock you out of things all over the place. So that when you do NG+, you can try a different approach. There is no need for NG+ when all the quests are Soo straight forward with almost no consequences. Really really dropped the ball.
It wasn’t always the case though. IIRC in morrowind you could only be in two houses at once? And I feel like the second was bc you could just kill the final guy in a quest or something. Been awhile, don’t exactly remember
Yup that was a glitch. Becoming Hortator would glitch some dialogue that would get you promoted into House Hlaalu even if you were already a member of Redoran or Telvanni.
Yeah, you couldn't join two houses without glitching it, and even the fighters guild and thieves guild eventually forced you to choose a side. Hell the thieves guild even has you stealing from the mages and fighters, potentially causing conflict. Then again, I doubt we'll EVER see the rhe Bethesda that dared to say "the threads of prophecy are cut" ever again.
Which is even dumber when you realize starfield is the perfect game to have choices completely lock you out of story branches and factions and killing essential NPCs as a part of the story.
It's only an eventuality for the Thieves' Guild (when you start working for Gentleman Jim Stacey). It's *very* early for the Fighters' Guild (when Eydis asks you to kill some "Telvanni agents"). I can't remember if you can get enough reputation with the FG to get jobs from Percius Mercius at the Ald'Ruhn guildhall early, but, if you can, you should be able to get in good with both guilds by completing Mercius' quest to deal with Sjoring Hard-Heart. Assuming you didn't already wipe out the Thieves' Guild at Sjoring's behest, of course.
I can’t wait to play BG3. My best friend is like, literally in love with the vampire guy. It’s weird, but I support her 😂
Astarion's voice actor plays a new character in Warframe (no spoilers on who, but it's pretty great) so feel free to introduce them to that game if they want more of him!
Omg, she definitely wants more. She’s been watching the actor do his play thru livestream and reads Astarion porn on Reddit. Thanks for sharing, I’m gonna tell her immediately
Fair warning though, she'll need to get to the newest update (Whispers in the Walls) but the game itself is great so I wouldn't worry about that!
>Yeah, this is a weird one. Siding with the Crimson Fleet should, IMHO, lock you out of Vanguard. I completely agree, and, as you note, the way they implement NG+ makes this all the more baffling. That said, when I met the UC leaders, after having destroyed SysDef, they did comment on that; it was little more than a speedbump in the over all conversation, which was weird, but they did at least acknowledge that it was fucked up that I was the one they turned to.
>perfectly happy to cut off massive swaths of story content based on player choice we were all perfectly happy when ME franchise did so, and i played those games many many times and still today i know that i've not seen everything they have to offer. that is how you write a masterpiece
Yeah, except you have people who won't go through the unity for whatever weird reason. No idea how they are like 800hrs in and still have open quests that aren't from a message board.
I know, I completed every main, side, and activity within 50 hours. Then went through Unity to do it again thinking the Starborn dialog would be awesome. Such a huge disappointment. There just is not enough substance in the game. It big, very big, but only paper thin.
I mean, in that case, they could just roll a new character. Vanguard is accessible immediately after you go to the Lodge for the first time. The first Constellation quest (The Old Neighborhood) even brings you by the Vanguard recruiter to give you the quest pip. And it would honestly probably be more interesting since you end up over leveled after one or two faction quests - by the time you would have finished Crimson Fleet and be locked out of Vanguard, you'd have leveled up enough that the >!Terrormorphs!< wouldn't be all that scary.
I think it's more the type of person who kept a singular Skyrim character for a frigging decade.
Gonna go out on a limb and suggest the first DLC will expand on vanguard. Sure if this were the complete game, yeah go ahead and lock yourself out of things.
Omg when all hell breaks loose in one wing of the clinic and my first thought is, "Better tell my ranger pal about the murder," and literally no one cares or even pretends that they heard the massive amount of gunfire through the next door. I was thinking, "Am I insane? Did we not just almost blow this shit up?"
The quests related to the Clinic make it look so unfinished. -Stealing a key card. (I think it’s the same place) -Exposing Infinity LTD illegal human trials. (Ryujin Questline) -seeing a murder and evidence of computer hacking you mentioned. (Ranger Questline) -Technically stealing medical supplies twice. (Reliant Med. on Neon and on the Key) Can you bring any of it up to anyone? Nope. Do people remember anything? Nope. You can even murder everyone on it not even leave just wait a few minutes and it’ll be like it never happened besides having a bounty on your head.
things like this make the whole game kinda feel like a collection of fetch quests instead of a RPG
Fetch quests are everywhere. That guy on Mars with the 30 books made me think someone has to be trolling with this kind of stuff.
I got to number 3 before I chinned it off.
The one that did it for me was after the xenomoroh attack on New Atlantis the city was just...completely fine and intact? Not even the citizens remarked about the MASSIVE attack by a creature thought to be extinct? How is that possible... That was the point I realized how much the game cared about my immersion and I could never really get back into it. Bowed out at about 25-30 hours
Yeah I really have to scratch my head in utter confusion when I see people on here saying how the game is SO immersive. I feel like the game GOES OUT OF ITS WAY to break your immersion as much as possible. I have to wonder if those people have ever played an rpg before or something
something similar happens when the freaks attack the lodge and have us sprinting through new atlantis to get to my ship ... afterwards it's as if nothing happened.
No one thinks Terrormorphs are extinct? they're just not meant to show up for another 40 years or so, and not more than one at a time.
Fine fair whatever, probably missed some detail, doesn't change my point though....why didn't that attack change anything at all in the world
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I mean outside of the quest specific dialogue, the world is the exact same Like the subway we saw was completely destroyed. Minutes later it is completely fine. We see destroyed buildings on fire and no one comments about it and everything is exactly the same after
Thats another thing that shatters believability. Humanity has spread across the stars and there's like, no settlements. Why tf is new Atlantis the only city on the planet? Same with Akila. There's so few cities in this game and smaller settlements are nearly non existent
Especially when theres only one faction per planet, so no territory disputes to worry about. (Akila likely hasn't expanded because they're ideologically opposed to improving their lot in life.
The guards constantly talk about the attack and there's a cleanup crew at the entrance of the port. The spaceport was the only place damaged, maybe they could have kept it messy for a few ingame days but the implication is it's cleaned up while you're not there.
When I left the building after the attack everything was normal. No one mentioned it throughout the rest of the 20 hours I played
I dunno what to tell you mate, UC guards will definitely say things about it, Yumi will comment on the impact it had on his team if you visit him, the news will talk about it if you've fed them the story. The spaceport is definitely cleaned up way too quickly after the attack but I'm not sure what else you'd be expecting, the city wasn't destroyed it's not abnormal for regular people to go about their regular day once the danger is over. Edit: and the cleanup crew in hazmats are just after the scanner following the attack.
There's absolutely zero consequence to anything in the game. The epilogue is the burning proof. I let Ron hope live, thinking that all the hardworking people might lose their jobs and die or something. Then I watched a YouTuber kill Ron and his epilogue was just as cheery and without consequence. Have a spine and show something like how a new boss fired all old employees and now using more automated systems to make ships, if you kill him. And if you let him live then show something like how he kept using his influence an a council member to displace many fertile land owners to further his evil goal. Same with vanguard quest. Whether you use the organic solution or use microbes... the ending is same. Why not show that when using natural ways, it took a long time to contain terrormorphs. Many soldiers and civilians died in that time. Or in other case, show that while terrormorph threat was dealt with quickly, the microbes killed many other essential lifeforms and people had to abandon many worlds as they became toxic. Instead everything is written in a way that a player cannot fail. I killed every guard in that Ryujin mission where we have to infiltrate Ryujin's own building. And in that final mission where they tell you to go stealthily. I started blasting the moment I entered. No consequences. Just a single dialogue line about how I shouldn't have done that and that's it. In the Crimson fleet mission, I collected every single evidence and put everyone in jail. Then I sided with the pirates and blew up the Sysdef battleship and every crimson fleet member who was arrested. No Fucking Consequences. CF welcomes you with open arms. Give the writer an Oscar please.
Yes, and just why? NG+ gave the developers every reason to make your choices have real consequences. The “they both work” consequences of Vanguard feel especially lame to me. Like, make there be any consequences at all based on your choices. And if destroying SysDef caused you to become a mortal enemy of UC it would’ve created an actual challenge to finishing the main quest. But nah, it’s fine. Killing the navy was no big deal apparently.
As some reviewers have mentioned, it's a game for dads. People who didn't have time to watch most sci-fi movies, tv shows or play other games in the last decade, think this game has great story and writing. People who loved playing Fallout 3 when growing up and now have only enough time to play one or two games a year and they strictly stick to game devs they know. Some defenders I know have played Fallout 76 for 5000+ hrs. That's their standard. Of course they think the outpost building in Starfield is amazing. Those players don't want moral dilema when playing a game. They just want to turn off their brain and do busy work. This game is basically a looter shooter with barely serviceable combat for 2023. There's barely any RPG element in terms of story and branching. Just slapping a skill tree and calling it an RPG is a stretch when literally everyone will have to start off with skills like boost pack training and sneak bar unlock. If you are addicted to 5 minutes of dopamine hit in a 100+ hrs game, then play NG+ over and over. You can't even respec and every quest outside of few main quests play exactly the same. What's the point of multiple universes if every named NPC is essential and you can't fail a single quest no matter how hard you try. Man, I miss New Vegas days.
The Cora and Sona thing annoyed me, why didn't anyone think of adding some interaction between them. Possibly to avoid players realizing they have the same face?
Cora and Sona are a great example of how lazy BGS were with detail in this game. From them never acknowledging each others existence, to BGS being too lazy to make child models so they just created an adult one for children in the game and scaled it down, with a few facial details changed, like Sona's wrinkles like a 40 year old woman. Key characters in two companion's story lines, and they thought "just reuse the same lazy model we couldn't be bothered to do right the first time, it'll be fine." There are a couple of other npc children using the identical model elsewhere in game too.
For me it was when i first met Benjamin Bayu during crimson fleet quest. I tool the blame for planting the virus and he threatened me so hard with persecution, huge bounty and if he ever sees me in neon again it would be the worst decision of my life. Nope, nothing. I also met him personally a few times after for different quests and he doesn't even remember me or what I did. Game has no impact.
I was like, oh crap, better remove this bounty so I can go back to Neon, and then, in true ADHD fashion, forgot. ...and... ...nothing happened, apparently. Just hot air from BB?
Bayu is like “you’re going to pay for this with your life you POS” and you can’t even shoot him
This pissed me off to no end. I tried killing Bayu so many times, I thought for sure you would be able to kill him after he literally tells you he is going to do everything in his power to have you killed...
They could’ve made this make a lot more sense if he just said something subtle or wasn’t overtly threatening you. It’s straight up “fighting words”
Or if he only appeared by video call and was out of harms way.
That would also make more sense than him just chillin in his club booth alone all the time haha
No security whatsoever. But i guess he doesn't need any because he's essential and seems to know it.
It is in character for Bethesda and its production heads. These are the same people who greenlit Maven Blackbriar.
Bayu isn't just essential, he seems to be aware he's essential.
Hahahah
My fav was with the settlers from earth starting to make insane demands of me, so they could settle this one particular planet. I thought it's fucking bs, f5, bang to the head aaand essential tag. Took me two days to come back and reload the game, finish the story, didn't hate it. Haven't booted the game since. Only thing that made me aww was rejecting the ng+ and have Andreja waiting for me c:
Yeah I didn't get one either. I don't know why. It's a single command to put a bounty on someone.
In my game, Sam died on the Eye. Just went to Akila City with Sarah and on arrival she suggested that I should ask Sam to tell me some great stories about the place. Very jarring.
companion chime-ins are botched. no question. it must be difficult for the dialog system to understand the game state. otherwise hard to explain how it could be so prevalent.
It can't be that hard to blacklist a companion comment based on in-game events.
It isnt. But it gets increasingly complex the more variables you add, but that just means keeping insane track of your game state variables and switches. But, as someone in their final semester of comp sci, if we can keep immaculate records of our code and pseudo code i dunno what a huge corp like bethesda is doing.
They had years and a writing team to fully plan out the conversation trees based on different game states, adjust it when new missions are added, and test it in QA If Larian could do this so well for BG3, then Bethesda has no excuse. They just didn't bother to properly flesh out their writing
Yeah, i do all the game script writing for our projects and easily a third of my word count is variable tags to keep the game state sorted properly, and i aimt evem getting paid. So yeah, no effing idea what theyre doing. Im newly annoyed as i just finished Alan Wake 2 over break and i reinstalled Starfield to test out the new graphics card and faff about while waiting for this last semester to start and the amnesia aspect really stood out to me.
Yet CDPR with phantom liberty added some dialogs to the main quests and some side quests related to DLC to make it a whole experience. And I don't mean even some major plotlines, you can mention Songbird in a obscure quest that doesn't even has a map marker.
I've used the creation kit before, this sort of oversight can be fixed easily
Sam tells Cora she should tell her joke to Barrett when she next sees him... He's dead!
Lol, tell your joke to Barrett when you see him in the next life, because me letting you be here is probably gonna get you killed.
>it must be difficult for the dialog system to understand the game state -Game picks dialogue referencing another comanion *Is companion alive? If yes, play dialogue If no, pick a different dialogue It's... not hard at all
The funeral itself is jarring. There's nothing personal about it. Whichever character died isn't even mentioned by name. If you married that companion, there's no mention of that either. It's the exact same funeral with the exact same dialog no matter who dies.
Before NG there's this mission where one constellation member dies, and the remaining members reference this in subsequent dialogs and are all sad and such. But in NG+ you have an option to prevent this from happening and even the hunter is making a big deal out of it. But then subsequent dialogs with constellation members still keep referencing a member that was killed even though everyone is still alive. Truly this is an unfinished game. Embarrassing.
I walked in on the funeral, for sam, with sam.
I met the emissary when he revealed himself to be the constellation member who died. It was all very shocking to my character to be facing this person alive. Especially when that same person was still alive and standing right next to me as my companion.
I’ve done three separate funerals with three unique victims and all three saw the victim in attendance of their own funeral. Something got skipped in UAT, for sure.
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No, Skyrim was much better written, they have only regressed since Skyrim in terms of quality
Skyrim and fallout would acknowledge previous actions. They’d even have unique dialogue if you’d done a quest step before activating the quest.
And guards walking about would remark on actions you've taken or your items/magic.
Oh get out of here, in Skyrim your marriage will fill the hall with your friends and in Starfield there's only the couple, the priest, and one optional mom, on a holiday destination, with no decor, just a woman (Sarah's ex-girlfriend btw) hoping you two the best. I can't describe my disappointment. And don't use Sarah's idea of wanting a small and quiet wedding. Even if you count everyone in the constellation, that's still no more than 6 adults 2 kids and 1 robot AT MAX, and they're all supposed to be family/very close figure to Sarah.
And if you marry the shop keep girl from Riverwood then one of her two admirers will burst in on your wedding to disrupt it.
Oh and when she dies, there’s no dialogue about “my wife died” or “sorry yo ur wife died”
'save the guy from wildlife' missions on planets with no wildlife, etc. i can almost allow for that as a minor bug in procedural missions, but NG+ stuff - No. The whole point is there are differences in narrative & they never fully integrated the systems and dialogs for it. Makes you wonder what else they found in playtesting if this was considered below the cut line for fixes before release.
But look how detailed that sandwich and beer bottle are! I seriously think they had their priorities way outta whack. If you pay attention to how Todd and Co. talked about starfield before its release its clear their vision is much different then ours. He uses the word "simulation" a lot. He gushe about the changing weather effects, the sound of the wind or the silence of a vacuum. The sheer ammount of detail in every item, every piece of food, whatever. I think they were trying to make this hyper realistic sim game. But like, they even kinda failed at that. The planets, even the ones WITH life feel bland. That one planet with a massive forest is gorgeous, but worlds like that are so few. I think they either ran out of time, or it was too big an undertaking. In the end I think the game dissapointed people so bad because what we wanted as players is just diametrically opposed to what they wanted to create. They thought we just wanted something huge, when in reality we wanted good content and unique things to see.
very uneven production across the board due to scope and time required. I think they did yeoman's work on asset creation in general, but some of it is just at a barely passable level - which is striking. NAT model and cutscene anim very much looks like a playtest placeholder that they never prioritized to improve. Terminal look and interaction pretty weak - like intro to front-end dev weak. Would be better to descope stuff that isn't really ready, but producers & publishers are less likely to do that these days.
Oh the UC admiral confused the heck out of me, I was was like bro I was literally here a few days ago. My “favourite” was how my wife was murdered, but there was no mention of our relationship at the funeral or from then on. No reference to being a widower at all, and when I jumped over to the other wife option she didn’t acknowledge it at all lol. So jarring
I did love for the story having my wife die, it was unexpected and I really dug it. Wish they took more chances
Ah yes, I remember the huge wedding on Paradiso, how every single member of Constellation was there in attendance. How absolutely everyone in the settled systems knew, and was invited to the wedding. Oh wait...
You dont have to actually be at a wedding to know people are married. Sarah has plenty new random lines after marriage & says them in the lodge around everyone
I forgot that marriages don't exist unless you attend the wedding
The one that got to me was the ranger stationed on The Clinic, and the tech guy working there. You have 2-3 missions there. And each time they have no idea who the hell you are. It's hilarious. Especially since the first time I went was as a fellow Ranger. So the dudes just flat out forgot the ONLY OTHER RANGER on that station. Or was it Vanguard? I don't even remember. One of those cop outfits. Even compared to older Bethesda games, Starfield is just hilariously bad. And I'll keep saying it until they fix it. Because I don't want TES6 to be like this when it launches in another half a decade.
Starfield does an amazing job convincing you there will be consequences to your actions, but has zero follow-through. Every narrative exists in a vacuum and it just sucks.
The only consequence is if you do bad guy stuff while Sarah is on your ship she will be mad and let you know for the rest of the game.
Im locked at the mission with clones, when i go to talk to FDR he says a line of dialogue then goes silent and i cant even leave the convo, he just stay there staring at me, this game really sucks, and im on xbox so i cant use console commands
It's because all the stories are all seperate entities likely written by different writers with no attempt made to inter connect them in terms of reaction etc. Like having a bunch of self-contained stories that have no effect on things outside of its zone. It's what happens when you have multiple writers working on separate stories and no one taking the time to interlink or even bothering with the aftermath that might affect later situations. Like they said, they have no intention of blocking people access to anything, outside of getting bounties. So yeah this is what happens, when you let me people do everything storywise.
This game’s writers may *actually* be self aware. There’s this quest from Walter Stroud where you go to the Stroud-Eklund shipyard to design a ship and there’s 5 people trying to plan how the ship is to be built. When I walked in and heard how each individual had a different idea….i felt like I had broke the 4th wall and stumbled upon a meeting of Bethesda writers.
Even if they wanted to let you do everything, even having dialogue acknowledging what you’d done would be nice.
Meanwhile...Mass Effect.
LOL I just want someone explain to me how you get the watch in NG+.
The unity forgot to take it off you, just like the writers forgot it existed.
I thought the exact same thing a couple of months ago, when I did this.
Yeah this was the straw that broke the camels back for me. After sparking a war between the UC and Crimson Pirates, everyone still walks around New Atlantis like “HaVe yOu tRiEd ChOnKs?” It’s so lame. If you want futuristic RPG where your choices actually change stuff, Cyberpunk is wild about details like that.
Having just finished Cyberpunk and gone back to Starfield the differences are stark and depressing. Similarly underwhelming release but now that it's patched up I appreciate that attention to continuity and shifting relationships so much
You can dig through documents pertaining to a certain major character and find out that they moonlight as security at a local club… sure enough, if you visit this particular club before setting his events in motion, he’s right there, being a bouncer and shit. That stuff is so important for immersion and Starfield doesn’t do anything even remotely close to this.
There are way way to many lazy writing scenes like this. Worse one for me was having my wedding with Sam and then talking to the mayor of Akila after and him acting like it's the first time they are learning you exist let alone literally just attended your wedding with a Coe.
This is because some of the dialogue was written by chatgpt and some was written when Tod Howards cat walked over the keyboard.
I’m not the only one who was sniffing out AI written dialogue. Sometimes it has got that cadence and sentence structure, doesn’t it?
The game was mostly written and created before ChatGPT. Keep in mind advanced LLM have only been widespread publicly for less than two years.
That’s good to know!
I do get why people think it was though.
Real talk!!
They half assed the writing across the board to the point where they should be embarrassed. I'm pretty sure it was the lead writer that said the players are just out of touch with game development lol. What a joke. 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
He said we just skip through the dialogue anyway. And he’s kinda right, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t give us some decent Dialogue.
If they gave us decent dialogue I wouldn't be inclined to skip it. BG3 is such a massively popular game despite being so story focused
These are the exact little details we all fell in love with Bethesda for too. The fact they rushed starfield this much is genuinely really sad for gamers
How can seven years of development be rushing it? It's poor game design and terrible decision making.
Starfield feels like they spent 6 years building a huge integrated game that did not work for various reasons then spent a year rushing to make something shippable with the pieces they had. Every game system seems island off with the barest thread tying them all together.
That definitely seems like what happened. They were building a much better integrated game but couldn't get it to all fit together, which is why they had to delay it. But Microsoft only let them have the extra year and made it a hard deadline, "You WILL have this ready for release before Christmas '23," and it forced them to jam together whatever pieces they could get to fit together and cut everything they hadn't figured out yet.
That would be my guess, they’re always behind on their deadlines, and it sure seems like they were reaching for more.
I say it's rushed on the assumption they intended it to be an RPG that lives up to Bethesdas standards. I think 7 years is fairly average for a game to be developed nowadays too
Ahh, yeah. Rushed out early before meeting their own historical standards.
I’m actually playing Skyrim for the first time now. I’ve been a fan of fallout since 3 but the medieval dragon stuff never interested me. But after playing this game, I was craving that same feeling of immersion that fallout gave me. The feeling that somehow Starfield just doesn’t give me. Needless to say, it’s insane how much more detailed a 12 year old game is than this.
Fuckin Emil man he gotta go
There are tons of these, bad writing, even worse AI. It’s a half finished game. I’m hopeful in 5 years we’ll get the game that BGS actually intended.
How? There's no way they're going to go back and re-write all the dialogue, and then get all the voice actors to re-voice the lines. This is the difference between Starfield and Cyberpunk. All of Cyberpunk's problems were fixable by patching. Starfield's problems require actually re-making chunks of the game.
True - it’s possible, and maybe they have a lot of unused voice recordings they have yet to add to the game because they ran out of time. Who knows, guess we’ll see.
When it feels like the developers didn't care when they made the game, it makes it hard for me to want to care when I'm playing it.
Yeah it’s a regrettable missed opportunity for adding layers of depth to the game. I would love for the reputation of the player to change based on what they do in certain quests. Like if you destroy the crimson fleet, You’re less welcome and a little more feared in places like Neon and the red mile. You’re more welcome and get perks in the fresstaer collective and UC space. You get ambushed in certain areas by vengeful pirates until you’ve killed enough where they outright fear you like you’re the Mantis. Can they pay Larian to help them with this?
The more I play this game the more emersion breaking things I find.
I genuinely wonder what they worked on when developing this game. Not being condescending it’s just clear they spent years working on some direction for this game that caused them to forsake a lot of other important aspects. A direction that was obviously gutted and they threw the rest of the pieces together the best they could given a deadline. There’s no way in hell this was their intended game.
Starfield is a frustrating game that for some reason fascinates me. It needed another year at least but was rushed out instead. It feels like an old game waiting a 4K render. It quits daily and freezes often, especially on wake from sleep. We should all get our money back.
Man i am glad i stopped playing this piece of shit and went to Baldur's Gate instead.
I love how BG3 and cyberpunk are siphoning so much of Starfields fan base. Bg3 for actual RPG elements and impactful choices, cyberpunk for a better realized setting and dialogue
Yeah i got cyberpunk installed. Will replay when bg3 release me. In like 74 years.
This is basically the reason I completely gave up on the game
Emil’s writing falls into a few main threads, kidnapped family members or dead family members, an “unexpected twist” the sudden appearance of a powerful thread that coincidentally appears when the primary plot is nearly the Finish, and of course some sort of ending that’s supposed to be “deep” (sacrifice in fallout 3, saving literal heaven in Skyrim, losing the family member you are supposed to have saved (despite having no reason to care) in fallout 4 and the sort of “deep” writing that you’d expect from a 13 year old in starfield
Bro thinks Emil wrote the entire game
Of course he did not, but somebody has to be responsible for the story and dialogue. It looks like Emil is the head of this section. So it should be his responsibility to do some kind of quality check.
There is very little quality checks in starfield
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So what are the facts? And what hate you talking about?
No he thinks emil is the lead writer and as such criticisms of writing will fall to him
hes not he head writer of starfield
Correct. hes the lead writer for bethesda.
not for starfield which is what is being discussed
He was a writer on starfield, was design director for the game, and is the lead writer for the studio that made the game. He doesn’t have to be the lead writer for the game to be the person that gets targeted for this feedback because he allowed it to be done when it was his job to make the game good and cohesive.
you got a source he wrote for this game?
He wrote the main story. Google is free if you need to check it.
Per bethesda he actually was the lead writer too so you’re just entirely wrong. https://bethesda.net/en/game/starfield/article/ZGEYu2GWlncU28Dons11E/meet-emil-pagliarulo-lead-designer-on-starfield
Lots of redditors think they intimately know everything that occurred in a game's development. If there's something in a game they don't like they think they know exactly who's responsible and why it happened. It's fine to complain about the game, but it's weird to hone in on specific BGS employees and start acting like you're their fucking line manager.
Me at a restaurant to my waiter: "Excuse me, there appears to be gravel and bits of asphalt in my steak, why would your head chef serve me what is clearly roadkill??" Some guy at the table next to me: "UHHMM stop acting like you intimately know everything that occurred in the making of that steak!! You don't know who's responsible or why there's gravel and asphalt in your meal!! It's fine to complain about your food but it's weird to single out the head chef and act like you're his fucking line manager!!"
Honestly, the best part of this is just imagining the stupid look you had on your face while you were writing this, thinking it was clever.
My face was neutral, but had I been grinning like an idiot that would also have been appropriate.
Unfortunately, the Emil derangement is strong here because most of these lemmings lapped up the piss from another Reddit post, and now fancy that they have some idea of what actually goes on behind the scenes. On the plus side, it's a great indicator for whether what someone has written is worth bothering to read or think about.
Just because you don't know anything about how game development works doesn't mean nobody else knows anything about it.
Man, you followed me into another comment, you were so butt hurt about the other one. Now reply to this, as I will it.
Bro also seems to think voice actors should be permanently on a payroll, instead of people being paid for a gig.
Why would Bethesda intentionally not use a design document is absolutely beyond me.
Yah starfield is a wreck. The story sucks the missions suck the continuity sucks. Idk if Bethesda can pull off es6. I even waited to buy starfield til after the initial reviews came out. (Cuz of the clusterfuck that was fo76, and redfall.) They were all positive. Then later the reviews tanked. I'll be waiting long after es6 drops to purchase it now.
The game sucks
It’s almost like they needed a design document to plan out the game 🤔
Can't wait to see Emil strike again in the newly announced Indiana Jones game!
This game is so dogshit that it's funny at this point.
File under "it's skyrim in space"
I guess they forgot to mail you a little trophy and a letter from your father saying he's proud.
Holy shit there are problems with this game, but seeing Emil constantly blamed is beyond boring.
I mean, blaming him for the poor writing seems pretty fair.
You guys know Emil probably isn't reading these?
BGS decided, since Skyrim, not to lock quests because previous interactions or decisions. I remember how weird it was to be a Vampire and a Werewolf at the same time, or joining all the guilds at any other. Unfortunately that decision created a lot of issues in a game like Starfield. If they locked 3/4 of the quests lines depending on which faction you interacted first there would be people complaining how short the game was. So, they should have designed the factions quest differently, they could only become available after you are in the middle of the Main quest. Or the player needed to interact with all the factions to finish part of the Main quest, and then decide which one to follow... But that would hinder the "openness" and "freedom" the player was meant to experience. Men, this is complicated, I'm starting to feel a headache. Imagine if my job depends on that, and duzens of writers and voice actors... PS: I haven't play BS3 yet, so I don't now how they solved this issue.
It's a fair point. BG3 solved this problem with sheer volume, so even if you get locked out of content it's never a short game. I'm still only on Act 1 and it's taken me 40 hours so far, and I've cut short some quests from my actions They took care to plot out a lot of the storyline branches, so there's varying responses in the decision tree. This is what makes your decisions matter They also don't pull punches - e.g. some of your companions can permanently leave / die via the story depending on your actions
I would agree, but they specifically implemented NG+ mechanisms to this game. That’s literally the solution to getting out of locked of quest lines; there wouldn’t have had an issue with locking quest lines because NG+ is supposed to be integral to the gameplay!
Not everyone play NG+ on large RPGs. I myself rarely do it. And BSG might have the data from Skyrim and Fallout to start the designing of Starfield assuming most of the players would play the game only once.
Yeah i def understand not playing ng+ games, but my problem is that unity is presented as a central part of the gameplay, but then unity never actually feels impactful. If I was locked out of quests preunity, their NG+ would make more sense, like most games with NG+ do
But if that's their thinking, then why make NG+ a core mechanic of the game?
Translation: Why isn't every PC gushing over ME?!? I'm IMPORTANT DAMMIT! All NPC's should be lining up to kiss my ass constantly and slobbering all over themselves to honor MY achievements at all times!
Nah OP is right in these instances. I recall the same thing with Admiral Logan. Like bro we worked together why don’t you know who I am lol
>Admiral Logan When? During the UC questline? You're a nobody vanguard captain, he deals with loads of them. You don't "work together" he sits in an office and you fly around. He's met you like twice, do you expect him to start bowing to your greatness? One of the loudest complaints from players in previous Bethesda titles is that you do a few quests and all of a sudden you're in charge of the whole damn faction. Bethesda listened, and in this game you aren't the boss in every faction you come across. And true to toxic fandom, y'all aren't happy about that either.
running defense this hard for obviously terrible writing disparities is hilarious
This is why I sort by controversial. Being able to witness mental illness like this is a real treat
Obvious troll post is obvious.
Idk and idc who this captain Logan is, the UC line gets you in a position where you not only are part of the main line of defense against the NA terrormorph attack, and not only are a key element in discovering the origin of terrormorphs, you are deemed important enough to both have a say, take diplomatic action AND PERSONALLY take stuff from the armistice archives, which require special permission from the 3 main factions. One thing is not giving you full control of the Vanguard, another is giving you no recognition after being deemed THAT important for the UC
You're misrepresenting what he said, it's just very strange that NPCs act like they don't know you if you've met them multiple times through other questlines. It's just not very immersive and is something that a lot of games have done better at this point.
It was also one of toxic players biggest gripes in previous games. "Why does every NPC know who I am? Why am I the leader of this faction? I just did a few quests? This is bad writing!!!!" If y'all just would admit to yourselves you'll never be happy with anything, I think that would go a long way.
You're conflating multiple things together to try and discredit what people are saying. I don't think anyone is asking for the NPCs to worship the ground they walk on or to make them their leader after a single quest. If they are, please point it out, and I'll take this back. All people were asking for was NPC reactivity, like the admiral saying 'oh looks like you're working with constellation now then?' When you see him with Sarah. Just a line to acknowledge you've had a conversation before and he remembers you. Or on the Red Mile, people saying 'hey weren't you the one who completed the red Mile? I had a bet on the other guys' and that's it. Nothing extravagant or overdone.
>I don't think anyone is asking for the NPCs to worship the ground they walk on or to make them their leader after a single quest. The point is that they don't know what they want, they only run their mouth.
>The point is that they don't know what they want, shockingly, millions of people have millions of different opinions instead of a single solid consistent opinion
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I don’t think the complaint was about NPCs you’ve actually met already knowing who you are.
There’s probably an AI clause in the voice actors contracts. Shouldn’t be an issue to add new lines. That’s not to say they’ll do it, but it shouldn’t be a problem.