What Are You Playing: 9 Years since the Last Dragon Age

[Lord Raziere]

played more Starfield after most recent update, managed to get a good few hours on it, trying to get on again and it freezes up and stops working two seconds into the actual game again.

its really weird, I can never tell if I'm going to be able to play the game or not, it either works for hours as if by magic or it works for a few seconds then randomly freezes on a frame and takes so long my cursor turns into a blue circle and "Starfield is taking too long to respond, would you like to end process?" message pops up, and I don't know how to fix it.

but my character is shaping up to be the rogue/han solo type of character I've always wanted for a game like this even if I'm just going around random systems exploring. wish I had an early game way of sneaking my contraband past the authorities though, which apparently I don't get until level 30 in some late system. why they gate this stuff like this, I'll never figure out.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

played more Starfield after most recent update, managed to get a good few hours on it, trying to get on again and it freezes up and stops working two seconds into the actual game again.

its really weird, I can never tell if I'm going to be able to play the game or not, it either works for hours as if by magic or it works for a few seconds then randomly freezes on a frame and takes so long my cursor turns into a blue circle and "Starfield is taking too long to respond, would you like to end process?" message pops up, and I don't know how to fix it.

but my character is shaping up to be the rogue/han solo type of character I've always wanted for a game like this even if I'm just going around random systems exploring. wish I had an early game way of sneaking my contraband past the authorities though, which apparently I don't get until level 30 in some late system. why they gate this stuff like this, I'll never figure out.

That's odd. I had access to shielded cargo bays far sooner than level 30. If you start the Crimson Fleet questline, you get access to their station which should have some available. If you don't want to do that, you can go to the Red Mile on Porrima III just fine. The system might say level 30, but you most likely won't run into anything that'll do anything to you. I was exploring into level 50+ systems in my 20s.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's odd. I had access to shielded cargo bays far sooner than level 30. If you start the Crimson Fleet questline, you get access to their station which should have some available. If you don't want to do that, you can go to the Red Mile on Porrima III just fine. The system might say level 30, but you most likely won't run into anything that'll do anything to you. I was exploring into level 50+ systems in my 20s.

Yeah. The Mantis questline ship has 120 units of shielded cargo, and you can get that at like level 10 or so.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

As a tangent, I find it absolutely hilarious that you can see the scan incoming and if the percentage is too high for your risk, you can do the typical Bethesda thing and pause the game, go into your inventory, and select the contraband to jettison it off the ship. The scan will come back negative and you'll avoid all the fines and annoying trip to jail. Since you'd lose the contraband anyway, it's the best thing to do.

It's funny because it's the space equivalent of the kid quickly throwing baggies out the window the moment he hears the siren behind him. I can just imagine my character sitting on his big bag of drugs, hearing the incoming scan notification, and hurriedly stuffing it all into the airlock; watching it wistfully drift away as the "All clear, welcome to New Atlantis!" message plays on the intercom.

[Rynjin]

As a tangent, I find it absolutely hilarious that you can see the scan incoming and if the percentage is too high for your risk, you can do the typical Bethesda thing and pause the game, go into your inventory, and select the contraband to jettison it off the ship. The scan will come back negative and you'll avoid all the fines and annoying trip to jail. Since you'd lose the contraband anyway, it's the best thing to do.

It's funny because it's the space equivalent of the kid quickly throwing baggies out the window the moment he hears the siren behind him. I can just imagine my character sitting on his big bag of drugs, hearing the incoming scan notification, and hurriedly stuffing it all into the airlock; watching it wistfully drift away as the "All clear, welcome to New Atlantis!" message plays on the intercom.

Why would you do that when you could instead choose to quickly land your ship, build an outpost, and stash your contraband for later?

You can land anywhere that's not in the city without going through the scan.

The game actually does a pretty good job of teaching you this petty subtly, I think. When you're doing the "help the miners" quest chain on Mars the guy at the port authority mentions that when somebody hastily lands outside of town it usually means they're up to no good. I had a flashback to that when I got my first contraband lol.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

Never thought to try that. I saw that landing was blocked until the scan was complete and assumed it was all landing. Bad assumption on my part.

[warty goblin]

With systems that meaningful and well thought out, my ongoing playing of anything that's not Starfield is certainly coming to a middle.

[Rynjin]

With systems that meaningful and well thought out, my ongoing playing of anything that's not Starfield is certainly coming to a middle.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, the game is so astoundingly mid that I didn't get very far into it, but it has some fun elements.

[Mechalich]

The whole contraband bit is kind of pointless, really, since by the mid to late game contraband is actually less valuable - in terms of weight to credits ratio - than many of the guns dropped by level-appropriate enemies, so it quickly falls into the not-worth-picking-up category.

Starfield may actually be worse than several recent Fallouts in terms of merchant capitalization. By the time you hit level 50 you can clean out Trade Federation reps with their 11000 credit cap by selling off a single gun.

[Lord Raziere]

The whole contraband bit is kind of pointless, really, since by the mid to late game contraband is actually less valuable - in terms of weight to credits ratio - than many of the guns dropped by level-appropriate enemies, so it quickly falls into the not-worth-picking-up category.

Yeah, but I want to roleplay a space rogue/smuggler, not murderhobo #347978327.

sure you can technically say its the games fault for making it that way, but this kind of comment doesn't actually help with my goal. it never does. your not pointing anything out that helps me, it just feels like I'm being told I'm playing wrong, no the fact that you didn't mean it like that doesn't matter, by saying this your focusing on what the game encourages and presenting it as The Way To Play because of how you worded it. instead of pointing out the dissonance between mechanics and roleplay, you present the mechanics as the thing to judge the game solely on and dismiss the roleplaying items I want to use as "not worth picking up" from that metric, which is not something I can agree with, because its only numbers, it doesn't take into account what I actually want to do with the game, it only takes into account what it does from this weird abstract number perspective where the only point of anything is the highest numbers, which to me is what is really pointless. and yes sure those higher numbers detract from the experience, but your presenting the detraction from what I want to do, as the goal by doing this, by assuming that its just about the numbers going up. and its never really about that, and I don't get any comment that thinks its about that, it feels likes it missing the point of playing things.

[Rynjin]

Typically a character that wants to be a space smuggler is in it for the money. Otherwise why perform criminal acts?

So if you can make way more money, way more EASILY doing...not criminal things, that's not just a numbers issue. That's a roleplaying issue.

I guess you could RP as a criminal who can't do math and is just getting ripped off constantly?

[ArmyOfOptimists]

It probably says something about me that I completed Starfield, but I got to Act 2 in BG3 and dropped it, even though I'll agree Starfield is an average game at best. I don't know what it says, but it says something.

[Mechalich]

Typically a character that wants to be a space smuggler is in it for the money. Otherwise why perform criminal acts?

So if you can make way more money, way more EASILY doing...not criminal things, that's not just a numbers issue. That's a roleplaying issue.

I guess you could RP as a criminal who can't do math and is just getting ripped off constantly?

Exactly. It does not make sense, in-universe, for your character to bother with contraband excepting a handful of cases where you're low level and happen to find some on a planet where there's a merchant who'll buy it off you that you can just bounce over too (I sold some bits of contraband on Mars).

Also, the contraband issue is more of a general problem with the typical broken economy of Bethesda games. Making heaping piles of money is easy, but the nature of the inventory system channels the player to sort everything they bother to loot by weight:value since you have to carry everything back to merchants to sell and can't fast travel while overloaded. Items with the best weight:value ratios are pretty much the same as they've always been: ammo, drugs, and weapons. Of course, there's relatively little to buy with one's gains, which is another problem. Ammo is abundant (though I suppose on higher difficulties the spongy nature of enemies might make this less true), and so are medical supplies. By the time I decided 'screw it, time to beat the main story' I was above level 60 and was carrying tens of thousands of rounds of various ammo types, and over 500 medpacks. Even ships, which you can purchase for high prices (though IMO it's more fun to take them from horrible people by storm), aren't a sufficient credit sink as the game only allows you to own ten of the things at once.

Worse, carrying around a giant credit balance doesn't really matter for any of the game's major quest lines. Sure, occasionally options open up to resolve some problem by throwing a big chunk of change at it, like buying the grav drive for the stranded colony ship over Paradiso, the main story doesn't care if you've got 10 million credits or none. It's just not a game where the economic options are very interesting, and if that's the desired play experience, I'd suggest playing something else.

[Triaxx]

It has some cool ideas and it's going to be a ton of fun once the modders have had their way with it for a while but it's definitely not as attention grabbing as I'd hoped.

[Lord Raziere]

Typically a character that wants to be a space smuggler is in it for the money. Otherwise why perform criminal acts?

So if you can make way more money, way more EASILY doing...not criminal things, that's not just a numbers issue. That's a roleplaying issue.

I guess you could RP as a criminal who can't do math and is just getting ripped off constantly?

That is never a solution. Please refrain from suggesting incompetence for no reason as something to roleplay, it is not "help". That kind of logic is why I don't listen to optimization guides its all about stupid numbers and not about actually making the fantasy happen.

[GloatingSwine]

I think the OG Frontier is the only spacey-tradey-shooty game where smuggling was even slightly profitable (once you learned which of the buyers on the BBS weren't police stings).

I may or may not have smuggled a frightening quantity of nerve gas into Sol...

[Triaxx]

The issue with being a Smuggler is kind of... That's not what Bethesda wanted. If they did then there would be a variance in prices location to location. But the super drug is worth as much where you buy it, as it is in the sector where having it makes you KoS. There's no intrinsic value in smuggling it.

Which is highly disappointkng to me but not unexpected. Still if I want that this isn't the game i play for the experience.

[Sapphire Guard]

Spoiler: Still Dragon Age: Origins, up to Landsmeet

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I thought when I went to Denerim with Arl Eamon that that was going to hit the point of no return, a la Mass Effect 1, but no, you can still do quests just fine. So I got into Arl Howe's estate, released Anora, and she betrayed me, of course. I reloaded the save because I was in no mood for a another bossfight and surrendered. This let to me instantly breaking out of Fort Drakon pretty easily (sorry, guard who runs the kennels, it was you or me), rather defeating the point of surrendering in the first place.) But now I know I can't trust Anora, thanks to an alternate timeline that no longer exists.

Oh, and Zevran turned on me because the Crows gave him a better offer. Presumably if my relationship value is high enough he doesn't do that. It was a quite tough encounter.

Next is the Alienage. The orphanage quest is a bit cheap, why did we bring the blind man exactly, only for him to be killed by demons in a cutscene for no reason. It also seems a bit weird, as we know the Chantry doesn't teach that you can invoke the Maker's name to gain power, why does Otto think he's an exorcist?

I tried to talk down the slaver and failed, so had to kill them all, which meant befriending the elves.

I feel like my 'no gifts unless plot relevant' policy worked against me, I've onlt unlocked Morrigan and Leliana character quests and can't be bothered with either.

The obvious political choice is to have Alistair marry Anora, but I would have had to persuade Alistair, and I didn't want to use my high level persuasion on my friend as by this point that amounts to basically mind control.

Next, Landsmeet, finally.

[Errorname]

The issue with being a Smuggler is kind of... That's not what Bethesda wanted. If they did then there would be a variance in prices location to location. But the super drug is worth as much where you buy it, as it is in the sector where having it makes you KoS. There's no intrinsic value in smuggling it.

Which is highly disappointkng to me but not unexpected. Still if I want that this isn't the game i play for the experience.

Yeah, Bethesda just aren't designing with smuggling as a core element of the game. They included it because they think it's something players want and that feels appropriate for the setting, but the game isn't about smuggling and I don't think it's a concept that really interested the core creatives.

[Anonymouswizard]

It probably says something about me that I completed Starfield, but I got to Act 2 in BG3 and dropped it, even though I'll agree Starfield is an average game at best. I don't know what it says, but it says something.

BG3 is very dense and in Act 2 very linear. As in the main plot takes up much more of the act than it did in Act 1, each sidequest can only really be done at certain stages of the main plot, and the biggest difference (do you get Minratha's or Halsin's recruitment quest) was decided a good five to ten hours ago. So I can see both burnout and disappointment at it not being as open as Act 1 contributing to such feelings.

[Cygnia]

Gonna hopefully try the demo for The Thaumatuge in a bit.

[Psyren]

All I can say is if you're giving up on BG3 you're missing out on a generational touchstone. Whereas Starfield is just another Bethesda RPG - not bad, but not great either.

[Rodin]

All I can say is if you're giving up on BG3 you're missing out on a generational touchstone. Whereas Starfield is just another Bethesda RPG - not bad, but not great either.

*nods*

The smuggler discussion with Starfield really sums up the difference from what I understand.

Bethesda: So, we've got this epic story in an open galaxy, and...

Player: I wanna be a smuggler!

Bethesda: Um...sorry, we didn't really plan for that. It's a looter shooter, playing other ways isn't really supported...

Meanwhile...

Larian: So, we've got this epic story whee you try to defeat an evil god while stopping yourself from becoming a mind flayer, and...

Player: I wanna be a mind flayer!

Larian: Really? Um...okay, we can handle that. So, about this evil god...

Player: I wanna side with the evil god!

Larian: Well, I guess we do have evil characters....okay, done. What else?

Player: I wanna be a psycopathic serial killer who is also a Gnomish Paladin!

Larian: We've got you covered!

Player: And I want to romance a druid!

Larian: Easy!

Player: ...while he's in bear form!

Larian: *begins drinking heavily*

[Anonymouswizard]

*nods*

The smuggler discussion with Starfield really sums up the difference from what I understand.

Bethesda: So, we've got this epic story in an open galaxy, and...

Player: I wanna be a smuggler!

Bethesda: Um...sorry, we didn't really plan for that. It's a looter shooter, playing other ways isn't really supported...

Meanwhile...

Larian: So, we've got this epic story whee you try to defeat an evil god while stopping yourself from becoming a mind flayer, and...

Player: I wanna be a mind flayer!

Larian: Really? Um...okay, we can handle that. So, about this evil god...

Player: I wanna side with the evil god!

Larian: Well, I guess we do have evil characters....okay, done. What else?

Player: I wanna be a psycopathic serial killer who is also a Gnomish Paladin!

Larian: We've got you covered!

Player: And I want to romance a druid!

Larian: Easy!

Player: ...while he's in bear form!

Larian: *begins drinking heavily*

Eh, considering how horny the rest of the game is that's not where they started drinking. They were clearly already gazeboed by the time they were writing the romances.

[Erloas]

I'm pretty sure the smuggling bit just comes from the fact that that is a pretty common thing to have in space games, so Bethesda just did it because it is expected. I remember it in a few games way back when, but even then it was rarely worth the effort.

[warty goblin]

I mean to do smuggling right, you need at least some version of supply and demand; not necessarily a dynamic economy, just stuff that is cheap but legal at A, and expensive and illegal at B. And some sort of meaningful system for getting it from A to B without getting caught. These are totally normal features in space games, but ain't really part of the Bethesda Package. And boy does Starfield not stray from the package.

It probably would also help to not have the standard singleplayer RPG economy, where the question isn't if you end up wealthy beyond all practical application, but whether you get there at hour 6 or are all slow and don't go Scrooge McDuck until hour 7. You know, might make doing illegal stuff and running risks for money mean something in game.

[Triaxx]

Freelancer would like to know your location as it makes hundreds of thousands of credits a run. The X-series finds that amusing as they single handedly cripple entire economies making beer and cigarettes.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think the difference is trying to do one thing well and trying to do everything. Freelancer is an open space game with a large trading element, Baldur's Gate 3 is a pseudo-open fantasy adventure, Starfield wants to be both. I'm sure that once modders have given it another decade or three of development time it will be the game that's amazing at both.

[Psyren]

Freelancer would like to know your location as it makes hundreds of thousands of credits a run. The X-series finds that amusing as they single handedly cripple entire economies making beer and cigarettes.

And Elite Dangerous, and Eve, and...

I mean, it's not like Bethesda had to come up with something entirely new here.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

All I can say is if you're giving up on BG3 you're missing out on a generational touchstone. Whereas Starfield is just another Bethesda RPG - not bad, but not great either.

As much as everyone raves about them, I don't like Larian games. Haven't been able to get through any of the Divinity games and thought maybe working in the DnD setting would push them out of their comfort zone into something I'd find more appealing. Instead, they dragged it into their zone and made it worse. It's a well-made CRPG that doesn't suit my tastes at all and I'm not about to argue it's wrong to like it, but I can't see what makes it a "generational touchstone." It doesn't do much that other CRPGs haven't already done, and I find it does several things worse. To its credit, it has an extremely polished presentation, visuals, and acting.

The main reason I dropped it about 30h in is out of boredom and lack of interest. Mechanically, owing to the issues of 5e and further worsened with Larian's homebrew, it's not a challenging game. Narratively, it's kind of a mess and doesn't present a very interesting plot hook either. Finally, I find all the characters grating since they're written like OCs trying to out-cool each other. When the protagonist feels like the least important part of the party, I think that's a sign they messed up.

All that said, I'm probably going to ruffle feathers voicing those opinons. I know I'm in the minority and I'm sure I like other games that people would be up-in-arms about, so don't let me yuck your yums.