Any games caught folks' attention lately?

[Der Zeitgeist]

7 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

After having spent so much time playing Elite, which looking back was unprofitably spent, It would need to be pretty extraordinary to go and play something similar.

Starfield is not like Elite, in fact it's more like the exact opposite.

Where Elite: Dangerous had very intricate spaceflight and space combat mechanics, but a very rudimentary on-foot component (with the Odyssey expansion) and almost no single-player story component to speak of, with Starfield it's the other way around.

Starfield has a rich character-driven single-player experience with deep worldbuilding, similar to other Bethesda RPGs, while the spaceflight component is far less fleshed out. It really plays very similar to Skyrim, with the spaceships working similar to Skyrim player houses (only that they're mobile and you have to fight with them sometimes), providing storage, sleeping quarters, crafting and a kind of customizable player home.

So far, I'm around 20 hours into the game and I'm still in the first big city, because there's so much to explore and countless quests that introduce the player into the world, its factions and lore.

Edited September 3, 2023 by Der Zeitgeist

[Sardaukar]

On 9/3/2023 at 10:38 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

After having spent so much time playing Elite, which looking back was unprofitably spent, It would need to be pretty extraordinary to go and play something similar.

Reminds me to bring out my Anaconda in Elite:Dangerous

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ive got one too, the problem is I found its only any good in combat if you equip it with military armour, and that costs an insane amount to fit it. I just lost the will to keep grinding to get it.

[Harold Jones]

On 9/3/2023 at 9:29 AM, Der Zeitgeist said:

Starfield is not like Elite, in fact it's more like the exact opposite.

Where Elite: Dangerous had very intricate spaceflight and space combat mechanics, but a very rudimentary on-foot component (with the Odyssey expansion) and almost no single-player story component to speak of, with Starfield it's the other way around.

Starfield has a rich character-driven single-player experience with deep worldbuilding, similar to other Bethesda RPGs, while the spaceflight component is far less fleshed out. It really plays very similar to Skyrim, with the spaceships working similar to Skyrim player houses (only that they're mobile and you have to fight with them sometimes), providing storage, sleeping quarters, crafting and a kind of customizable player home.

So far, I'm around 20 hours into the game and I'm still in the first big city, because there's so much to explore and countless quests that introduce the player into the world, its factions and lore.

This Reddit thread talks about what's available if you look for it and isn't super spoilery for those who care.  It does sound like Skyrim in space in that the least important part of the game is the main story.  There are also something like 400 mods available on Nexus already so the mod community is stuck in and working to help smooth out the Bethusdaness.

 

[Sardaukar]

10 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ive got one too, the problem is I found its only any good in combat if you equip it with military armour, and that costs an insane amount to fit it. I just lost the will to keep grinding to get it.

I did like Python way better.

[Der Zeitgeist]

2 hours ago, Sardaukar said:

I did like Python way better.

This Python brought me all the way to the other side of the galaxy and back during Distant Worlds 2 in 2019. Never needed another ship after that.

[Der Zeitgeist]

Starfield also has some historical spaceflight sites to discover.

[Stuart Galbraith]

11 hours ago, Sardaukar said:

I did like Python way better.

I liked the Class 9 freighter the best. Looked like a house, flew like a house, made me an Elite Merchant.

I should pick it back up. But I dont know, between writing, doing chores, trying to learn the Mirage F1 in DCS, there are only so many hours in ones life.

 

[Harold Jones]

Thoroughly enjoying Starfield so far.  I've made some progress on the main quest but not much, mostly I've just been wandering around and letting myself be distracted by the side quests and activities I've stumbled on or been led to by overheard npc conversations.  If you played FO4 or Skyrim many of the control conventions are familiar.  The game says SSD required and it is, my default Steam install is a hard drive and I installed it on that without noticing the SSD requirement.  Launching the game was painfully slow and it froze frequently during game play.  Once I moved it (fortunately Steam makes this easy to do) to my SSD it smoothed out and I haven't had any issues since.  I haven't tried the ship building yet, I figure I should probably know what I want out of a ship before I start down that rabbit hole.  I did grab a fishbowl and "mount" it in my ship's cockpit.  

Edited September 6, 2023 by Harold Jones

[Der Zeitgeist]

1 hour ago, Harold Jones said:

  I've made some progress on the main quest but not much, mostly I've just been wandering around and letting myself be distracted by the side quests and activities I've stumbled on or been led to by overheard npc conversations.  

Make sure you play the main quest for another stage or two, because it acts as a sort of continued tutorial and introduces some important gameplay concepts still.

Greetings from the beach resort planet! 😎

Edited September 6, 2023 by Der Zeitgeist

[Angrybk]

Bought Starfield but realized that at 50 I'm just too old for this shit. Was fumbling around like an idiot during the space combat tutorial.  

Tried Baldur's Gate 3 too and got vertigo trying to move around the Goblin Camp and accidentally had sex with a Githyanki. I think I'm just gonna get into my walker and go play Zork.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Angrybk

[Allan W]

What are the recommended and minimum system specs for Starfield?

[Der Zeitgeist]

3 hours ago, Allan W said:

What are the recommended and minimum system specs for Starfield?

They're quite high: https://www.eurogamer.net/starfield-pc-requirements-minimum-recommended-specs-9352

The game currently doesn't run all that well on Nvidia GPUs, although there is a mod that integrates DLSS (Bethesda apparently had a deal with AMD for the game so they use FSR2). It's also very demanding on the CPU. 

Personally, I have a Ryzen 3900x, 32 GB RAM, an RTX 3070 and I'm playing it on 1440p, and to get to 60 FPS I have to turn some settings down like shadow details. 

[Sardaukar]

This seems interesting based on some Youtube videos:

http://www.grandtactician.com/thecivilwar/index.html

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah, Ive got that. Ive got that, but I dont seem to play it anyway. Which is a shame, because its about the only tactical game that manages to also include a significant grand strategy element as well.

I played it several patchs ago. The AI seemed reasonable, but not necessarily that smart. It did better on the tactical battles than it did the strategic ones.

Probably ought to try it again.

[urbanoid]

Recently started playing Dragon's Dogma, a 2016 (biiig) open-world RPG and it's right up my alley. Now I see that Dragon's Dogma 2 will be released later this month. The former is now -84% on Steam (around 5 bucks), probably due to upcoming release of the latter.

And in May we're finally getting Ghost of Tsushima for PC.