Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Starfield is lame - Bg3 is going to win GOTY - Taking bets.

Kidding about the bets because I probably can't legally do that, but BG3, despite its flaws, is going to be GOTY.

I spent the last 4 days waiting for the Minthara patch to play EA Starfield and wow- what a pile of trash that game is. Bethesda is going all out trying to buy up all the marketing it can paying off Reddit, Metacritic, twitter etc...so it will do well amongst the mouth-breathers but the gaming community is disappointed and for good reason.

The fact is Starfield is being compared unfavorably to Bg3 and being held to that new standard. Larian shouldn't have been worried about Starfield stealing it's thunder, but Bethesda was right to be worried about being held to a higher standard because of Bg3.

I judged this game based on the development team size and the money bethesda had to sink into it, plus the 7 year build cycle - given those factors Starfield is a huge disappointment. No Man's Sky is a much better game - despite the bugs and wonky colors.

The only things I liked about starfield is the relative lack of bugs, the homage to other sci-fi books and movies, the ship design system and the aesthetic.

The bad:
1. The universe is fake - it's just a series of gates. You can't fly from Earth to Mars, you have to loading screen there. If you fly you will just run into the "MarsPixelSolarSystem.img" graphic which is flat. You can't fly into the sun, or manually fly into a planet. Apparently this technology was lost in 2003 after Freelancer was released.
2. The characters and writing are terrible, boring, basic bitch overused tropes.
3. Endless fetch quests, that lead to more fetch quests. I hope you love those loading screens.
4. Gatekeeping through skill point level ups. The opposite of Skyrim exists in this game - at least on your first playthrough. You have to do all these low level quests to really unlock the ability to just go anywhere and explore and build bases.
5. The ship combat and the first person combat are mediocre at best. Maybe this gets better the more skills you unlock.
6. You are going to spend a lot of time micromanaging inventory. The inventory system is horrific.
7. You can't swim, the NPC's are mostly non-reactive with awkward facials or no facial expressions.
8. One last thing that REALLY bugged me - the ship design system is actually a neat aspect of this game but is held back because Bethesda couldn't be bothered to label the ship modules to explain what is in them. No way to tell if a ship module contains a specific crafting station or any crafting station because they couldn't spare the minute it would take per item to do this apparently. It's like they didn't playtest the game at all.

It's like Bethesda looked at the open world aspect of Skyrim and how people loved to play it and just said "well fuck that, we need to make people play a specific way"

Anyway, there is a lot more wrong. Trust me, go buy No Man's Sky if you want a decent space game, or go dig up Freelancer on GoG.

BG3 100% will win GOTY. It has shaken up the industry in much the same way Elden Ring did last year and while Larian has a lot of work still to do, it remains an amazing game that is streets ahead of anything else released this year...and Starfield is streets behind.

I haven't played Starfield, but I've seen some of it streamed online, and it really did seem dull. I just figured it wasn't for me and reloaded bg3.

Zelda wants a word with you.

Also, a GOTY needs to be finished, BG3 is not.
Besides I read a lot of reports from people who were initially sceptical of Starfield that the game starts to make a lot of fun, even though they can't really articzlate why and even though they are very aware of its shortcomings.

Also many points from OPs list apply 1:1 to BG3. Fake world, bad inventory, ect.

I haven’t played Starfield, and from what little I have seen, I wouldn’t try it for more than $35, so it will be a while before I test it myself.

That said, there is really no point in tearing it down here.

Do people really care about which game is GOTY?

It’s 50-50 Zelda or BG3. I think it will come down to which game feels more like an innovation. While most of TOTK is based on BOTW, the engineering bit in an open world is particularly unique. However, I think BG3 does a lot of things that haven’t been done before particularly in replayability, TTRPG simulation, and scope of diverse cinematic experience, to say nothing of how it found a way to make turn-based combat fun on CONSOLE. I also think its addition of verticality to CRPG traversal is significant. The games are fundamentally different though, and it’s like comparing Elden Ring to Ragnarok. The priorities of each game are just so different.

GOTY is significant in two ways. First, it is an excellent marketing tool that can give a game greater longevity, legitimacy, and sales. Second, it is probably a major morale booster for developers. Anyone who has led a project knows that morale is very important. When indie devs win GOTY, it tends to be a big deal.

Anyways, Larian just went

Haven't touched Starfield yet been broke as hell lately but, my bro's been playing it non-stop along with one of my buddies. Sounded pretty good from what he was saying, he also played the new Zelda game which was also really good. Guessing it'll be a toss up between BG3, Zelda, and Starfield.

Haven't gotten Starfield yet as I'm not really into Sci-Fi, unless it's Star Wars or Star Trek. I may get it eventually, once it goes on sale but there's no way I'm going to pay € 70,- for it. I have my gripes with BG 3, but at least it's fantasy.

Yeah, as Zerubbabel pointed out, it does matter, and it matters a lot. It's not just an acknowledgement of the creativity and sacrifice that a dev team put into a game but also a nod of approval to games being made in a way that creates a conversation around - literally how games are made.

It mattered that Elden Ring won GOTY and not God of War because God of War was more an Interactive Experience with a massive budget that didn't deliver anything particularly memorable and was restricted to a single console* - PS4.

Elden Ring however is an incredibly well-crafted experience that allows the player to experience challenges in multiple tiers and was available to all major systems and it caused a lot of discussion about the industry itself. It upset people, and people need to be upset about stuff happening in the gaming world. It opened a lot of people's eyes to what they have been missing in the gaming experience. It raised the bar.

*Frankly, single system games shouldn't even be in the running for GOTY - but there may be value in sending the message of "we acknowledge this is a great game but you lose points for not making it cross-platform"

So I don't see Zelda winning. It was innovative in some ways but didn't open a dialogue, and it's single system. Do better Nintendorks.

It's like eating a bowl of plain Oatmeal and you think "Ok, now that I finished this I can get something better" but NOPE - you get more Oatmeal, and after that Oatmeal there are 5,000 more bowls of the same Oatmeal waiting for you.

Sometimes the bowl of Oatmeal will contain a single raisin on top.

The worst part of Bethesda games are the procedural generated bits and the loading screens. What made them think making a game based around those two components would be fun?

The best parts of Bethesda games are the handcrafted segments and the seamless exploration-- being able to pick a direction, go, and have the world unfold before you. That's why Morrowind is so good. I played it after Skyrim for the first time in 2017. I had no nostalgia for that game, but I was shocked how, despite being very dated and smaller than its successors, it captured the feeling of traveling in a seamless, handcrafted world built entirely for you to have your own adventure. Also, just because it needs to be said, Emil Pagliarulo is the worst AAA Western RPG writer, and it's not even close.

Sincerely? If Larian doesn't fix the content and epilogues soon, I don't think he'll win and he shouldn't. As much as we like some aspects of the game, advancing the release has had the consequence that customers have an incomplete and rushed game on their hands. That should not be rewarded by critics and players despite all the game's potential to become legendary. And no, it doesn't matter if you plan to fix it in the future, if it is not practically immediate it is not admissible: I have bought and paid for the game now, I want and deserve to play my full game now, don't tell me that in the future I will have a definitive edition because then you advertise it like that and I'll buy the definitive edition. What would I like? Let Larian fix it, he'll win deservedly, we had expansions... that's what I'd like. But right now unfortunately we are not

For the record, I'm not saying this with joy, I'm a big fan of the saga and I truly believe that Larian was doing an epic job until it accelerated.

The fuck is "grass"????


SIDENOTE on 2 matters:
Has anyone noticed the user reviews on Starfied? Metacritic user reviews are pretty bad, and Steam reviews are almost at 80%, at which point it ceases to be "very positive." When was the last time a mainline Bethesda game was this poorly received? (76 doesn't count).

Also, it bears repeating: Larian engaging with the community and improving this game further over time is what will separate it from other titles this year. For the next 3-4 months, a hands-on/activist approach is necessary. Not activist in a political sense; activist in engagement sense.

If would like BG3 to win GoTy just as a strong message to the AAA gaming industry. That alone would be great.

As for Starfield. Three letters: LOL. Its basically a FAST TRAVEL SIMULATOR with boring dialogues and a so so shooter. It tries to do everything and does everything mediocre. No man's Sky is the better Sim (the free content up to now in 2023 is unreal) , Sky Citizen the better gameplay (and sim...when it works...) The beginning part of Starfield is a carbon copy of Sky Citizen's beginning lol.

And good god those Bethesda faces and animations...

I really, really enjoy Baldur's Gate 3. I love the dungeon designs and the creative gameplay... That said, narratively I'm rather disappointed. I'm not so sure what I expected, but story-telling-wise I find it not so satisfying, and that was a major selling point for me. There's no personal stakes, no good villains, too heavy on the very, very high fantasy and too annoying with all the constant dreams and tadpole-conversrsations, and god, all the in-your-face romances in camp. Don;t get me wrong, very impressed with the game, but not that special as it was hyped up to be, either.

Starfield, I downloaded yesterday. Taking a break from Baldur's Gate and explore this. Not done much, I'm on the first hub-world. The controls are really hard to get used to and coming out of BG3, the faces look so un-human. Not like in the picture above, the game is gorgeous. But somehow the faces look less human than they did in Fallout 4. Or it's jsut that I came out of BG3 which did an awesome job at faces, skin textures, eye colors and hair and so on. But, just the sheer world building and all the design of vehicles and buildings and everything in it... That alone is just top-notch, I find it really exciting to explore. Of course, after the first mission, the main plot turns into a stupid mcGuffin hunt across the Galaxy, and I've already encountered those Modern Day questing goals like 'scan plants 5/5 whcih I will never ever bother with... but... I'm rather excited for it.

Threads like this suck. What am I on, gamefaqs 1999?

Frankly, single system games shouldn't even be in the running for GOTY

Jesus CHRIST lol. Just awful.

I don't mind the criticism but I do mind the lack of articulation. You just kind of said things without explaining anything.

Here, let me help you. I don't like system exclusive games winning GOTY because it encourages System exclusive games - and we end up with a fragmented environment - a situation, which if not discouraged- will only get worse and with everyone supporting their own little fiefdom.

Now you try, use your words...

I used my words to say your thread sucks and has no place here.

It's the General Thread, and it's about the only possible challenger to BG3 for GOTY not having a hope in hell of getting that win.

How is it not an appropriate place for this kind of discussion? Or is that just your opinion? What are you angry about? Lets chat.