Starfield

[Mr Fish]

All right, so Sarah AKA Horny Mommy has dialogue that pops up when you get more friend points with her and I've purposefully avoided being too chummy with her because she's really annoying and quite frankly she's not my cup of tea. But this time around I'm forced to pick an option that is a bit too... Well... I'll just give yall the options:

1. I feel like we're making some good memories of our own.
2. Aja must have been quite an amazing person.
3. Keep talking like that and I might get jealous.

I suppose 2 is the least "hey, you can use my face as a taco grinder" but I feel like the game is pretty much railroading you into fucking her.

I picked 2.
Aja was her former superior and she looked up to her greatly.
1. maybe she was just trying to keep an eye on the rookie
2. the rookie being paired with the Chair... Sounds awfully familiar
3. Being pairedw ith the Boss must have been quite an honor.

I guess I'll just go with 1 as the other two... 'insinuates' things.
bla bla the journey we had was great (we totally didn't fuck).

1. I can relate to that.
2. I find the journey boring, but I live for the destinations.

Well, I guess I have to pick 2 even though that makes me sound like an asshole. Why can't I just have a professional or friendly relationship without clearly thirsting for a lonely cat lady, Bethesda?
Uh, I kinda dazed out during this next dialogue part with her and I can't scroll up or anything to see what she previously said.
Nothing too interesting about the rest of the dialogue options but there was one giant [FLIRT] option that I thankfully skipped out on, praise Allah.

Anyway, my point is that you can't have normal dialogue and just be, I dunno, friends? It has to be all worshipping one another, thirsting like mad, giving weird compliments that are a bit too wink wink. It's like Bethesda just assumed that everyone would want to fuck her that the dialogue is almost linear in its corralling towards that option. I think someone over at Bethesda was very horny for some mommy lovin' when they wrote this character.

 

[Eumesmopo]

Well, I mean this is actually them slippery sloping 'upwards' on the quality scale. So I'm not sure the metaphor really works.

Why are you unhappy with the Bethsoft games if you actually like retarded shit like that? lol

 

[Mr Fish]

Why are you unhappy with the Bethsoft games if you actually like retarded shit like that? lol

It's not retarded.
And also, see everything else Bethesda has done to understand why I'm unhappy with their games.
Just cause one location has better world building than any previous location has doesn't mean it's some sort of fine cuisine.
All I'm saying is that Bethesda is showing signs of improvement in the writing from what little sample size I currently have.

It's not a binary.

[edit]

Now that I think about it, we have extractors in the game that automatically extract components from the earth and I don't mean that just us the players have them I mean that you can find extractors out and about when planet exploring. So why are people walking around with mining lasers in hand? That is actually a good question. My best guess? Uh... They want to make sure that there is a vein to tap into before they set up an extractor?

Still, I haven't seen anything that explains it so we don't technically need robotic automation when we have extractors (which is just industrial automation) but then the question is why do we need people with hand laser moseying about? And honestly, I have no idea. That might just be bad writing cause there is something that can "auto-mine" it.

But, man, I'm not gonna explore every planet's tiny little settlements to find the obscure but of dialogue that explains it so I'll just err on the side of caution and say that Bethesda are so simpleminded that they can't picture mining being done any other way than by literal miners.

Still, 'the other' stuff in Cydonia is fiiiine.

 

[TheGM]

With how current game designs works of small creative teams handed places to write for, it is entirely possible that one team was able to write their designated area to not be fucking stupid. Conversely you also end up with the teams who follow a check list verbatim and you end up with a game filled with diverse butch lesbians all bitter about their exes.

 

[Mr Fish]

With how current game designs works of small creative teams handed places to write for, it is entirely possible that one team was able to write their designated area to not be fucking stupid. Conversely you also end up with the teams who follow a check list verbatim and you end up with a game filled with diverse butch lesbians all bitter about their exes.

Yep. Which is why I might change my mind on this later. But Cydonia, barring automatic robotic mining, is fine. It's acceptable.

So....

Spoiler: spoiler warning duh

So uh, Hadrian for the UC faction questline needs access to the terramorph data, a xeno-weapon. In order to access it you need the approval of three factions, the UC (which is a given) the House Of Voraphiles (which is easy enough just give your word that it won't be used for bad and that's that) and... Freestar... Now Freestar asks for a very specific condition considering they were at war with the UC and don't trust them and that is OVERSIGHT. They want the research we get access to to be monitored heavily. Now I do a bunch of things yada yada yada and then I return to the woman who's a clone of a man that HeelsVSBabyface sperged out over and... There is no oversight... I don't see any freestar researchers around, no cameras, no nothing.

What's up with that?

CORRECTION, just as I finished talking to Hadrian a bunch of NPC's just ... Appeared? and one of them is called Freestar Observer, so nevermind I guess...

 

[Eumesmopo]

It's not retarded.
And also, see everything else Bethesda has done to understand why I'm unhappy with their games.
Just cause one location has better world building than any previous location has doesn't mean it's some sort of fine cuisine.
All I'm saying is that Bethesda is showing signs of improvement in the writing from what little sample size I currently have.

It's not a binary.

Bro, it's a Peter Pan town on a hardcore post-apocalyptic scifi setting with deadly threats everywhere. I imean, there's even a horde of heavily-armed cannibalistic super mutants living inside the same cave complex as them, they are just separated by a tiny little wooden wall and there's not even anyone guarding it. Literally nothing about that location works or makes the slightest lick of sense. I'm a severely low-functioning autistic and I still couldn't make it any dumber and ill-fitting even if I tried. And that's not even mentioning how annoying that little kid with the 'essential' tag at the gates is, he railroads you into a quest that you don't want to do because he conveniently happens to be immortal. That place is by far my least favorite thing of any Bethesda game (and I have played F4, Morrowind and Skyrim).

 

[Mr Fish]

Bro, it's a Peter Pan town on a hardcore post-apocalyptic scifi setting with deadly threats everywhere. I imean, there's even a horde of heavily-armed cannibalistic super mutants living inside the same cave complex as them, they are just separated by a tiny little wooden wall and there's not even anyone guarding it. Literally nothing about that location works or makes the slightest lick of sense. I'm a severely low-functioning autistic and I still couldn't make it any dumber and ill-fitting even if I tried. And that's not even mentioning how annoying that little kid with the 'essential' tag at the gates is, he railroads you into a quest that you don't want to do because he conveniently happens to be immortal. That place is by far my least favorite thing of any Bethesda game (and I have played F4, Morrowind and Skyrim).

I wasn't talking about Little Lamplight, I was talking about Cydonia. Little Lamplight is actually fucking retarded. Like it is a verifiable test to see if someone isn't all there in the head.


Anyway

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I wonder if that'll be enough to catch people's eyes. So I got a question and I'll streamline thedetails as much asi can:

1. War happens.
2. Mechs are deployed.
3. At end of war, mechs are outlawed.

Question, do you think that they could EVER outlaw mechs?
Like, how many research stations or factories contain the manufacturing detials of how to make mechs?
How many hackers hacked the deets to be able to make mechs?
How many people inside of the gov decide to just hide away a file that allowed the manufacturing of mechs?

Is it even possible in a futuristic society with all the data flowing about to outlaw something like the research and manufacturing of mechs?

[edit]

Soooo, remember the terramorph I kept referencing that was an apex predator? Well apparently it got an apex predator of its own. A threehorned giraffe... No, I don't understand how a gaint fuck off spider alien is weak to a alien giraffe but uh... That's the lore we're running with.

 

[Morgan_]

When has a spider ever killed a giraffe though?

 

[Mr Fish]

When has a spider ever killed a giraffe though?

Well, if the spider was like 1/3 of the giraffe and hyper aggressive and got mind control powers then uh.... Yeah.

 

[Eumesmopo]

I wasn't talking about Little Lamplight, I was talking about Cydonia. Little Lamplight is actually fucking retarded. Like it is a verifiable test to see if someone isn't all there in the head.

Well, I did say that it was a slippery slope towards Little Lamplight. I'm glad that was just a misunderstanding, though. So, yeah, from what you have said the world building for that place does seem like an improvement over the usual Bethesda slop, I just think it could have been a lot better is all.

1. War happens.
2. Mechs are deployed.
3. At end of war, mechs are outlawed.

Question, do you think that they could EVER outlaw mechs?
Like, how many research stations or factories contain the manufacturing detials of how to make mechs?
How many hackers hacked the deets to be able to make mechs?
How many people inside of the gov decide to just hide away a file that allowed the manufacturing of mechs?

I'm pretty sure that mechs were actually supposed to be in the final game (they even featured one on a trailer), they just got cut out from the final version because they had to rush this thing out. Maybe they will actually introduce them into the game with a DLC later on. It would probably make the boring planetside trekking a lot less of a issue.

As for the 'lore reason' given for mechs existing in the lore and being absent from the gameplay, they gave the exact same excuse when they cut off levitation from Oblivion (they did it because they introduced walled cities that had to be transitioned in and out of with loading screens at the gates). It's just another Emil-being-utterly-incompetent-at-his-job moment, no surprises there.

 

[Mr Fish]

Well, I did say that it was a slippery slope towards Little Lamplight. I'm glad that was just a misunderstanding, though. So, yeah, from what you have said the world building for that place does seem like an improvement over the usual Bethesda slop, I just think it could have been a lot better is all.

Absolutely.

I'm pretty sure that mechs were actually supposed to be in the final game (they even featured one on a trailer), they just got cut out from the final version because they had to rush this thing out. Maybe they will actually introduce them into the game with a DLC later on. It would probably make the boring planetside trekking a lot less of a issue.

Ah, I didn't pay attention to that detail. But there's a lot of work that has gone into the whole banning of mechs so it can't be that much of a last minute decision, my conspiracy theory is that Bethesda is just too shit to add in functional vehicles on land. They can't even get horses right so why would they be able to get mechs right?

As for the 'lore reason' given for mechs existing in the lore and being absent from the gameplay, they gave the exact same excuse when they cut off levitation from Oblivion (they did it because they introduced walled cities that had to be transitioned in and out of with loading screens at the gates). It's just another Emil-being-utterly-incompetent-at-his-job moment, no surprises there.

lol

[edit]

I forgot, yknow Alien. Chestbursters wiggle about for a bit then they turn into big ol xenomorph? Yeah that's Terramorphs. Their "larval stage" is a thing called "heat leeches", basically looks like snakes with wonky heads. And at some point they cocoon or whatever and turn into giant spiderlike creatures.

Also, in Starfield lockpicking is called "digipicking", meaning digital lockpicking. This means that the lockpicking minigame is used for everything. Locker containers, locked computers, locked machinery, everything uses digipicks that you use to digipick with. Also literally every merchant sell digipicks. I don't know what that says about Starfields society but uh... Yeah.

 

[Eumesmopo]

Ah, I didn't pay attention to that detail. But there's a lot of work that has gone into the whole banning of mechs so it can't be that much of a last minute decision, my conspiracy theory is that Bethesda is just too shit to add in functional vehicles on land. They can't even get horses right so why would they be able to get mechs right?

That is possible. You gotta have in mind, however, that Starfield was originally meant to come out almost a year ago (11/11/22), so they might have been cutting out features to meet deadlines for a long time. Besides, modders have successfully introduced working vehicles to the gamebryo engine before (The Frontier). On a worst case scenario they could have replicated their scripts (or outright copypasted them, lol). I don't doubt that they might have just failed at the task, but I'm betting on it still being on the horizon as a DLC feature.

Also, in Starfield lockpicking is called "digipicking", meaning digital lockpicking. This means that the lockpicking minigame is used for everything. Locker containers, locked computers, locked machinery, everything uses digipicks that you use to digipick with. Also literally every merchant sell digipicks. I don't know what that says about Starfields society but uh... Yeah.

That's probably the single laziest and most unimaginative thing on the entire game tbh. Even worse than the desert_texture.jpg Earth. Why couldn't they have made a proper hacking minigame? Did they really think the lockpicking minigames are an essential feature that people flock to Bethesda "RPGs" for? lol

 

[Morgan_]

Eh. I think I'd rather have digipick tbh. I kinda like it and don't care for hacking minigames much. Bioshock and Deus Ex have some decent ones but they get tiresome. Using little arcade games as hacking is fun but only briefly.

Oblivion lockpicking is still my favorite. Digipick is kind of a mix between Fallout lock picking and Oblivion's version.

 

[Mr Fish]

That's probably the single laziest and most unimaginative thing on the entire game tbh. Even worse than the desert_texture.jpg Earth. Why couldn't they have made a proper hacking minigame? Did they really think the lockpicking minigames are an essential feature that people flock to Bethesda "RPGs" for? lol

Digipicking is a different minigame btw.

You gotta match the bars with the holes and line them up in advance before you push them in so that you can make sure you don't misplace one. I also think it's lazy to use for everything but as to the minigame itself? Eh, it's more challenging than Fallout 3 and beyond's lockpicking system as you actually have to be careful this time around but that just means it is 'yet another' thing that drags the game out unnecessarily and most of the time what is inside of a locked container isn't really that interesting. It's like, instead of the usual 10 ammo you get 12 ammo. Like, ok, that was worth spending 2 minutes on an expert lock for.

Also I finished the UC storyline and there's a bunch of dumb things in it as per usual Bethesda writing but the story portions of the game are the only moments the game even remotely "comes alive". From animals being sapped by spore plants to grow, what? 50 times in size? To a robot that has been roaming a battlefield for like 20 years and had zero maintenance still working. To a diplomat from a weird snake cult being totally ok with us having access to the doomsday archives so long as we pinky swear to use it for good; There's a bunch of really dumb shit.

But... Nothing as bad as ghoul kid in a fridge or Little Lamplight.

Like the story is marginally better than what they've done before for "faction storylines" but that isn't saying much.

(I also still do not understand how a space giraffe is able to kill a giant spider 1/3 the size of it and be the spiders apex predator to the point that they are going extinct in their homeworld. That bit is just monumentally idiotic to me.)

Spoiler: who would win?

 

[TheGM]

Up reflection I don't think I ever really tried to solve a Fallout 3 style hacking minigame and just resorted to brute forcing my way through them since the option is there and I didn't care to waste time trying to "figure" it out.

 

[Mr Fish]

Up reflection I don't think I ever really tried to solve a Fallout 3 style hacking minigame and just resorted to brute forcing my way through them since the option is there and I didn't care to waste time trying to "figure" it out.

Yeah I never figured it out, I just chose the first three, exited and then choose the first three again until it succeeded.

[edit]

Maybe it's just cause I'm slightly hungover form yesterday and just had myself some wine (horny wine-mom mood incoming) but uh... I don't wanna play this game anymore. I started doing the main quest and I had to deal with some bullshit jumps first and of course I got distracted and wasted like 30 minutes on things that were pointless that just lowered my mood more and more and more and then I had to take a step back and ask myself: Do I think that this is going to happen again? And the answer is yes.

I finally made it to cowboy town and boy oh boy is it stupidly designed.
Mud everywhere.
Walls that look like this:

Why would you construct a wall with rocks in a futuristic space game?
There's troughs of water for presumably the horses I've yet to see.
There's wooden board walls all around the spaceport.

This town SCREAMS cowboy cosplay.

And I just can't take it seriously.

Like, I have other things I want to do. I was playing Pillars Of Eternity and Gothic 3 before this shitstain slapped in my face and I just don't want to play it anymore.

I might compile all my posts, go over them and try to review what I have played but unless a clearer head prevails tomorrow I dunno if I'll return to playing Starfield. It's just... So.... BORING!

I didn't think a game could be worse than Skyrim but Starfield has actually taken its spot as my most loathed Bethesda game.

We'll see tomorrow how I feel.
Also, where's Johnny? Momma needs some dick!

 

[Mr Fish]

 

[TheGM]

I finally made it to cowboy town and boy oh boy is it stupidly designed.
Mud everywhere.
Walls that look like this:

Why would you construct a wall with rocks in a futuristic space game?
There's troughs of water for presumably the horses I've yet to see.
There's wooden board walls all around the spaceport.

This town SCREAMS cowboy cosplay.

And I just can't take it seriously.

Because over 20 years ago there was a tv show that lasted one season. Not that other games have already ape'd it. I dropped in and out this place for 1 story mission and it was dark outside so I didn't see much. they made a big deal about the local pitbull panther things. they died. There was a "Farm" and by farm I mean it would be like one acre of a real farm, I guess nobody at Bethesda have ever seen a farm before and just think its some simpleton in a hat raking dirt with a bristleless broom. Which now begs the eternal question that has everybody on edge about Westworld. . .

What do they Eat?

 

[Mr Fish]

Because over 20 years ago there was a tv show that lasted one season. Not that other games have already ape'd it. I dropped in and out this place for 1 story mission and it was dark outside so I didn't see much. they made a big deal about the local pitbull panther things. they died. There was a "Farm" and by farm I mean it would be like one acre of a real farm, I guess nobody at Bethesda have ever seen a farm before and just think its some simpleton in a hat raking dirt with a bristleless broom. Which now begs the eternal question that has everybody on edge about Westworld. . .

What do they Eat?

Oh well I thought I would criticize the game for that question of "what do they eat" but then I realized Bethesda has a perfect copout explanation for it. See, we got entire planets right? And you don't get to explore the entire planet. So whatever it is that you ask for is probably in there. What do they eat? Oh, they eat stuff from cattle at a ranch... SOmewhere. Where? Oh, somewhere, don't worry about it.

And to be fair here, did we have an explanation for where all the food in Mass Effect's locations came from? Nope. But we could easily assume that it came from plants and factories and ranches and farms SOMEWHERE.
Where?
Oh, somewhere.

And so Bethesda simply doesn't have to answer the question of "what do they eat" because the answer would be "Oh they eat stuff produced by *muffled noises* who operates on planet *whistles* and you just never get to see it".

And I mean, I don't really care that much if they want to use that copout of an excuse anyway. I'm far more concerned about logistics and production of basic goods in a post-apocalyptic setting than I am a sci-fi setting.

The fact that the farm had one acre is pretty lol-worthy tho.

 

[TheGM]

The What do they eat thing is joke about a series of video essays people have made on the subject. I would have never even given this one acre farm a second thought if some Security Droid didn't start yelling at me saying "This Farm is Property of Farm Co, a division Scumco-Phillips".