Stop. Preordering.
100%. I’m a diehard Bethesda RPG fan, but never ever preorder. I’ll never understand the stupidity in doing this.
I also got hyped and joined the launch day queues when i was a kid. But then we as a community got burned again and again.
Like even the most casual gamer must get pissed off by broken servers.
Honestly I think this is a considerable portion of pre-orders. We didn’t have too much money when I was a kid so having something pre-ordered, knowing that when it comes out I’ll for sure get it, felt really good. Those were the ODST, Battlefront 2 (original) and Oblivion days, though.
Times have changed since, and even to kid me I’m pretty sure how buggy these games tend to be would annoy me.
At the end of the day, it’s a constant battle in my head between “let people enjoy things and do what they want with their own money” and “their spending actively lets companies know it’s ok to do this over and over again, delivering buggy messes that will affect game series I enjoy” lol.
Like at least find out if the planets are any good first and not just 2000 procedurally generated flavors of bear asses to collect.
Hopefully there’s a whole RPG game in there and those are just side stuff to muck around and get some loot.
I feel like mods would liven those planets up, but even then, I’m still expecting starfield to be very buggy.
The only thing they showed as a quest there was collecting bear asses from generic dialog with a scientist (but possibly there’s more to it) so that’s not a great sign. I can live with bugginess but if the content isn’t compelling why am I playing? if the content is compelling enough I’ll deal with a lot of bugs.
and yeah I think there might be a lot of cool mods around adding content to spawn on these planets if the structure of the game allows it.
This is the part that really worried me. They were talking about how the planets are procedurally generated but have the little “environmental narrative” elements that Bethesda is known for. So I thought, okay, maybe they procedurally generated 1000 planets and then populated them by hand with quests, NPCs, etc.
Then they go on to talk about how “your experience on a planet may be different from your friend’s experience on the same planet,” and they show an obviously procedurally generated fetch-quest from a generic NPC. So I’m getting the feeling that anything to do with the main story or the main faction quests is done by hand, but everything else in the game is just going to be procedurally generated nonsense. I could be wrong, but it’s worrying.
The people that preorder clearly aren’t listening
The people that preorder clearly aren’t listening
Or they are listening and just don’t care.
I feel lucky. The only game I have ever pre-ordered was Battlefield 3 for PS3. Considering it’s EA and Frostbite was relatively new, I really lucked out
Why are people advising against pre-ordering? Is Bethesda known for not meeting expected release dates?
It’s a digital good, there’s no scarcity and a lot of them turn out buggy or just bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf5Uj4XIT1Y
Basically, preordering incentivizes companies to release games that are not finished. In general, companies will always maximize revenues while minimizing costs. If they can release a game that didn’t cost them as much to produce (getting massive preorders through good marketing but pinching development and quality) then they absolutely will. look at any AAA released this year
Why are people buying products that they can’t even have until release day?
IMO it’s generally not a great idea to pre-order anyway because it’s not like they can ever run out, plus you never know what’s going to happen on launch day. The game could be a big mess like Cyberpunk was, or the servers could go down because everyone’s downloading at once so then there’d be no point paying to get it on day 1 anyway.
And on top of that, Bethesda has a bit of a reputation for putting out games that are… let’s say unpolished on release day. I usually find the best approach is to leave it for a day or two, see what people are saying about it online, and then pick it up if you really want to.
I think one reason is that Bethesda’s previous game’s, Fallout 76’s, release didn’t go very smoothly. Not at all smoothly. Internet Historian has a good video about that: The Fall of 76
That and preordering a digital product that literally can’t run out has no benefits.
You just put down money for something without any idea what you’re getting.Preordering physical copies used to be a thing because shops would run out of them.
People will never learn to not preorder games. I have no hope for humanity at this point.
Queue the “internet people are a vocal minority” saying. Unfortunately, it really is true. How anyone can pre-order after fo76 is absolutely bonkers to me
well. yeah. i know people don’t like to hear it, because it’d be really nice if games shipped actually finished or not incredibly bug-ridden Day 1, but for most people the protest of not preordering a game so it’ll shipped finish just… doesn’t register as a concern. unless the game is so broken it’s actively unplayable (see the recent Gollum game) most people can hang with whatever happens Day 1 and it’s not a super big deal to them, nor is the principle of a playable game on launch. this is a case of online sentiment being a vocal but clear minority.
Yeah but Bethesda?! Release a big ridden game? Unthinkable.
/s
Its not a protest its common sense.
I dont know the product. I wait for the review embargo to lift. Then i wait for AT LEAST release day to hear if its broken/servers are down (hello diablo 4) or its just shit.
I can still literally buy, download and play it that same day if its amazing.
Yep!!! A game forum is a subsection of a subsection of people who actually play video games on the regular. The biggest groups of “gamers” are people like my cousin who buy the new FIFA, NBA2k and COD that come out every year.
On top of this Bethesda is one of the biggest game companies out there. It’s easy to forget because Skyrim was forever ago, but that game was so fucking huge that people I knew who didn’t care a single lick about video games asked me when “the dragon game” was coming out and if I was gonna get it and if they should get it too. I’m already getting messages from non-gaming friends asking me when starfield is coming out. The game’s gonna be explosive in popularity when it drops.
I hear ya. At the same time, I’m very happy to wait a year or more to buy the game with all DLCs are a discount.
I know that doesn’t change the fact the studios are banking on pre-orders to finish funding the game, but I’m doing my part… As little as it is.
I hear ya. At the same time, I’m very happy to wait a year or more to buy the game with all DLCs are a discount
Exactly my thoughts. It makes no sense to me buying a Bethesda game, knowing there will be DLCs that usually do not go on sale. So you pay full price for everything or are forced to buy that base game twice with a GOTY release.
I am years behind with Bethesda games, but once you are behind, you are not. I always have a good title in my stash to play :-)
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I will be a day 1 pirate. Starrrrfield. 🦜🏴☠️
Lol I recall preordering Cyberpunk 2077
I would never pre order this early, but I don’t see the big deal when you get close to release date. Sometimes you get early access or a few other perks, and there’s really no risk since you can get a refund if the game is totally broken at launch.
They never learn do they ?
My tactic of waiting a year until a newly released game is fully patched and grabbing it with a discount has yet to fail me.
(For visibility and sharing)
Not like I have the time to play the games I already have anyway!
I’ve just switched over to watching games being played on Twitch. I can enjoy all the latest games, at max settings (minus the 1080p twitch encoding), and divert my attention to other things simultaneously.
Let’s not kid ourselves, Bethesda depends on the unofficial patches and mods to really make their games working and shining. A year or two is mandatory for their games. 😅
People post the xkcd Cake is a Lie comic to try and elaborate on you losing on the social aspect of avoiding the hype train.
But then I see posts made yesterday about Afraid of Monsters and think: Dumbest xkcd punchline. People are STILL making jokes like that out of games older than Portal.
Nope. And everybody will scream cause they payed 70 bucks for a broken game, just like Bethesda is known to produce.
Just keep looking at the list. Payday 3 is also there. A publisher known for maybe a worse dlc and microtransaction policy than EA with the Sims, but it seems that doesn’t matter a bit.
DON’T PREORDER SHIT YOU STUPID
Why are people preordering a DIGITAL, BETHESDA game?! It’s still the Creation Engine (Creation Engine 2 so hopefully they fixed it!) so it’s probably gonna be a buggy mess at release.
Rule 1 of Bethesda. Don’t pre order Rule 1 if space games. Don’t pre order
did no one learn from No Man’s Sky at launch like??
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Have some decency and crop out the ifunny logo!
$70 for a Bethesda game that will come out broken is just insane to me. I’ll pick it up a year or so after release at a discount when the game is actually decent
IDK about a year for me personally, as when it doesn’t massively disappoint when it comes out I will likely get it as soon as I have anything resembling a free day. Nothing like cracking into a new game after you know it won’t disappoint and you have post of time to loose yourself.
Nah Bethesda games are best left alone until the modders get a solid crack at it to shore up bugs and add features that probably should’ve been in the base game. Give that shit at least half a year imo
undefined> esda games are best left alone until the modders get a solid crack at it to shore up bugs and add features that probably should’ve been in the base game. Give that shit at least half a year imo
I definitely love the mods that the community makes for Bethesda games, but I have also enjoyed many of their games without them… I will often do a vanilla play through prior to doing any mods.
it’s fine without mods… but they elevate it to a must play level
Same thing I do with Far Cry games
Wait until it’s on a deep discount, then pick it up and hopefully enjoy it.
FC6, despite some of its flaws, was definitely worth the $10 I paid for it.
I played Oblivion and Skyrim right at release and had a good time with both (more with Oblivion though).
I played Gothic 1, 2 and 3 though, so I am used to games with really ugly bugs. The ones where your saved stage can get corrupted in a way that you have to load one from several hours back to correct a mistake to be able to proceed. So my threshold might be higher.
Gothic 3 was so broken it was impossible to get it to even run on my PC.
It took me 8 years but I finally got a refund when the Australian Consumer Commission won against Valve over their anti-consumer practices.
I won’t even consider buying until it’s been out for at least a year or two. By then the major bugs will have been fixed and all the content added.
I’m so glad this community exists here!
If only lemmy.ml was not down haha
Another proof for publishers that they only need big promises and nice trailers to sell their game, nevermind the state they ship it in
Preordering is dumb, preordering in 2023 when it’s 50/50 whether any given PC port is going to be a total mess is dumb
At least they can refund?
Really depends on the platform I suppose. Steam does a good job at that. Xbox or 3rd party key sellers? Not as much.
It looks good in the marketing (it always does) but we should all remember that it’s Bethesda making this. Then again, I can’t even name a developer that I would say “hell yeah, this is gonna be awesome!” at this point. The very sad state of the industry.
On the producer side, Annapurna is a strong quality guarantee for me.
They seem to have a good track record with releasing good games, but they’re a still like any other publisher at heart. The rights and mental health of devs seem to be a second thought, but that’s pretty much any publisher these days.
However if you’re looking for quality, they seem to be of positive indication.
PC Gamer - Two reports paint a troubling picture of workplace abuses at acclaimed indie studios
Cdpr used to be the one for me even with Witcher 3 release, but with 2077 it was another whole level, specially the way they robbed the devs of the bonuses.
CDPR was probably everyone’s go to of a AAA dev that hadn’t yet been corrupted by money. Unfortunately with Cyberpunk 2077 we found out the hard way that yes, they had indeed been corrupted by said money. They single-handily managed to annihilate any sort of reputation they had gained over the many years of their studio, then managed to squander all of that in less than a few days. As the saying goes, slow to rise, quick to fall.
I’m curious what happens with Phantom Liberty. They’re saying they’ve overhauled the entire game and fixed all the issues…but does that mean only for people who buy Phantom Liberty?
- I hope they actually fixed all the bugs, and
- I sure hope they give all the properly fixed content to the people who already bought their broken game.
Remember No Man’s Sky? They’re STILL releasing free updates to that game. It looks to be way more than what they initially promised at this point. Totally redeemed themselves imo.
Video Game Chronicles appeared to talk to the games creative director Pawel Sasko, who said this.
The developer says it’s still discussing the exact details of when and how base game owners will receive the new systems, but that its intention is to deploy them for free. So as well as adding a sizable chunk of new story to Night City, Phantom Liberty looks like it could finally do good on many of the promises the base game failed to live up to for many, before the game’s leaders move Stateside to establish the sequel dev team.
So really, who fucking knows. Apparently the entire game is being massively overhauled to the point of where it’s practically a new game, the fact it took three years to get to this point shows truly how underbaked the initial release was.
No Man’s Sky is a bit different since it was a tiny studio that was promising the mood. Sony also threw the studio director straight into the limelight even though he had effectively zero public relations experience. Then again, he doesn’t really seemed to have learnt his lesson, as he has big promises for his next game, maybe it’ll be a surprise, who knows. Cyberpunk 2077 on the other hand has no such excuse, they had a very well capable and trained marketing and PR team.
I mean to be fair, with CDPR, their games were always buggy messes on initial release… and I say this as a huge fan of their games. Go back and look at Witchers 1-3… all of those had huge issues when they came out. But, the reason CDPR is held in such high regard is because unlike Bethesda and others, they worked their butts off on all of those post-release to improve and expand them. The final products of the Witcher franchise games are so good its easy to forget how many problems they had on release.
Nintendo - Zelda TOTK is incredible, so was Mario Odyssey.
And BGS main studio to some extent but I didn’t like Fallout 4.
Naughty Dog
FromSoftware and Nintendo? As far as I know, their games are both successful and polished. You might not like their games, of course, but if you do it seems like a safe bet.
I would say Rockstar Games ist one of the few thats left here. I was never disappointed by new Games they produced.
By saying “new” and “produced”, you are deliberately excluding the GTA Trilogy remaster I assume, because that is definitely a Rockstar Games mess.
Wasn’t that outsourced technically?
That’s not much of a defense. They outsourced the project and either: did not even peek at the product at any point of development (or when ready to ship) or they did review it, and found it acceptable enough to launch.
No matter how you cut it, R* severely fucked up.
Nobody has ever been burned by preordering, so I’m not seeing the downside here.
And it’s a good thing that Bethesda has never released a game that was unplayably janky at launch, otherwise I’d be worried for everyone.
But it I don’t have it pre-loaded on launch day, might miss some of those magical Bethesda Bugs™ that get patched out after release! What if all the planets are just hats worn by NPCs and they forget to hide the legs? What if the spaceships get spontaneously replaced with Skyrim horses if you go in and out of building just right? I could miss some of the best moments of the game if I don’t get that unpatched Day 1 experience!
Don’t worry, they’ll rerelease the game with day 1 bugs at least 4 more times over the next two years.
I genuinely can’t believe people preorder games but especially Bethesda games, which are notoriously buggy at launch and have tons of issues.
Pre-ordering digitally distributed games is so pointless, but even more so right now. At least wait for the review embargo to end.
But it’s even worse with a Bethesda game.
