Bethesda Is Charging $7 For A New Starfield Mission, And Players Are Upset

The company that introduced horse armor is charging horrendous prices for small DLC?
- I mean considering that single skins cost 20 in Overwatch or Dead by Daylight, 7 for an actual mission is almost generous.
  Fuck gaming is fucked...
  
  Eh, skill up had a great take on this. The thing is it's wayyyyy easier to be a small indie developer than it ever was before. Making a game (or any art) still isn't easy, it never was and never will be, but it's viable without a giant publisher in a way it just hasn't been before.
  Its the AA titles that are on the most precarious footing, but I bet even those do ok. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy some AAA stuff time to time, I've got a stupid amount of hours in overwatch, but I've never once paid for a skin because... why would you?
  The thing that's going to suck is losing the studios like Arkane. Their games weren't perfect but they were freaking cool, and they basically always got the raw end of the deal. Even Prey(2016), their masterpiece, is the product of corporate bullshitiery they had nothing to do with. So we're probably going to miss studios like that for a while (as they get re-tasked to fortnite/cod support teams) but "indie" stuff has already been stepping up to fill that void, and is less indie all the time.
  Look at Dave the Diver. That's not exactly an indie studio. They had resources. There's going to be a gap for a bit, but there's still a demand for good games and art. Those AA breakthroughs are what people want. Again, I continue to spend dumb amounts of time on overwatch, but it's not where I spend my money. Microsoft hovelled themselves by buying all these studios and not taking the leap with supporting them. Distribution just doesn't have the value it once did. So if microsoft wants to become CandyCrush, feeding an addiction loop to grab the whales, sure, whatever, but there's plenty of bread out there for studios doing other stuff.
  
  It's fucked because there are people buying that shit, in numbers that turn a profit over the cost of developing it. And it's a very low cost because the skin support is something they put in when they make the game, and then get an intern to shit out a gaudy skin.
  If you don't like it you're obviously not the target demographic anymore. It's mobile gaming tactics creeping their way on PC.
  
  I kind of feel like anyone who spends $20 on a video game skin shouldn't be allowed to make any financial decisions for themselves. Like, it was a test and you failed.
- Also remember they were purchased by Microsoft. Who in turn also just purchased Activision/blizzard
  
  Also remember Horse Armor DLC for Oblivion, released by Bethesda? Considered by many to be the catalyst of this kind of BS.
- Horse armor that didnt even give the horses armor. It just gave them a cosmetic appearance change and increased their health by like 3 times.

Seven dollars to loading screen to your ship, watch an animation of your character sitting down, loading screen to space, loading screen to the system it's in, Dodge some pirates, loading screen to the surface, hop along the completely barren landscape to go to a copy pasted outpost, loading screen back to your ship?
I feel like you could get all of the value of that dlc by just playing a mission over again.
- This...this right here is the reason I quit playing this game, the reason I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was just too fucking disjointed, you are so right.
  
  I didn't make it very far in to the game, I'd held on to my game pass subscription just waiting for it to come out, and cancelled my game pass after a few hours in Starfield. I made it to like the first big city a few small settlements after that, and everything felt so fucking lifeless. NPCs just didn't seem to belong in the space they inhabited. Oblivion and Skyrim NPCs really seemed like they owned the space they inhabited. Fallout 4 even once you got your settlements going really felt like they were home. The constant loading screens just made everything feel like it's own little universe, apart from the rest of the game. I did have fun raiding some base around the moon, one of the few times I had fun exploring. One of the few times I had fun, honestly.
- I haven't played this so take my 2 cents with a pinch of mixed metaphor.
  My assumption for this game was that DLC would be new copy pasted outposts, weapons, etc. That's the way a lot of procedural games go. It's not bad really, you take a good core game and pump it full of new set pieces and toys til hell freezes over.

Players could like stop paying for it... such an easy, low cost solution...
- That is my current solution. Currently enjoying Factorio, which had the perfect monetization scheme: you buy the game and enjoy it.
  
  Not to mention, it is entirely possible to get home from work, play, and then realize you are now late for work.
  Its just engaging on a level that most modern game's can't hope to achieve.
  Hell, I've installed a game (old), then installed mods, then resolved all the mod issues, then launch it to realize I don't actually want to play it.
  Factorio? Mods are easy, and vanilla is enough to keep someone occupied and happy if they lack internet or something.
  Its light weight too, it costs me virtually nothing to install it on anything that can run it.
  
  Factorio also interestingly, never goes on sale, Wube said that the value of the game is what it is and that's that.
- I got starfield for free with my video card, and I still feel ripped off and wish I could refund lol.
  But yeah, I'm not dropping a single goddamn penny on Starfield. It feels like a game that was made for the xbox 360 or something, with all the loading screens and shit.
- You get baited into accepting the quest and playing the first mission. Then you have to pay to continue.
  
  WTF! That shit shouldn't be legal.
  
  I wouldn't even play it if they paid me $7,-
- That's my route. Mods run on pirate skyrim just as well as legal and the best missions in Bethesda games aren't made by Bethesda.
  
  Yeah a lot of these entertainment companies forget that they need to earn my business with high quality product AND services, otherwise I will take matters into my own hands.
  This aint like housing and work, where they can just fuck you as if they are your prison guards. We got options baby!
- or worst case wait for the legendary version in a couple years with bug fixes and all dlc included.

Fallout 5 is going to suck
- Fallout 4 sucked, too.
  Its a fun shooter game, but its not a fallout. Throwing supermutants into a game doesnt make it a Fallout. Especially with how they fucked SPECIAL.
  Fallout TV is probably the last decent product from Bethesda, and I'd wager thats only cause Bethesda isnt in charge of writing.
  
  Fallout 4 is like 4 different games crammed into a trench coat.
  high emotion story game. Go rescue your child!
  high action shooter. Boom! Headshot!
  stats driven RPG. That naked bandit is level 40 so you can't kill him even if you shotgun his face
  settlement management game. Build and decorate a little town! Set up trade routes!
  All of these are kind of badly done, and mashing them all together didn't make something greater than the parts.
  
  Fallout 3's world doesn't feel like Fallout but the tone of the writing comes close.
  Fallout 4's tone and writing doesn't feel like Fallout, but the world does.
  New Vegas is the only 3D Fallout game that feels like Fallout in both the world and the writing.
  I can almost guarantee that unless Josh Sawyer and the other original talent that made 1, 2, and tactics that also worked on New Vegas are working on it, it will never feel like a true Fallout game.
  
  The perk system was fine imo, but the fact that attributes (except for charisma) did not influence dialogue at all was extremely disappointing.
  Roleplay opportunities were traded in for a better gunplay experience. It became an FPS, not an RPG.
  
  Eh, I liked it better than 3.
  
  As an RPG player, people kept saying I should play Fallout, but I never have because it always looked more like a shooter than an RPG, and I want to play an actual RPG, not a shooter with RPG elements (especially because I despise shooters).
  
  I hate modern gaming. Opinions aren’t allowed to be held. I don’t like this thing so ITS THE WORST OF THAT THING
- Only if you don't buy the Season 1 Vault-Tec Access Pass for $49.99. Imagine not doing that and then not ever being able to get your Overpowered Armor at pass level 5. You would absolutely be ruining it for yourself by not investing into the seasonal passes.
  
  🏴‍☠️
  
  Crypto would at least offer a non-zero chance of ROI.

But it'll actually cost players $10 because they must purchase 1,000 Starfield creation credits to afford it.
At first, I read this as if you needed to ingest a verification can before you're allowed to make a purchase. But alas, it is the usual shit where you have to buy their fake money.
- I thought that credit shit died after the 7th gen and its wii/xbox points.
  That it still exists, only for a single game baffles me.
  
  That shit is never going away, and for one simple reason: it's incredibly profitable. By converting real money into some nebulous fun bucks that doesn't directly correlate in value, they obfuscate how much money you're actually spending and make it more likely that you'll spend more than you intend to. The same reason that casinos have no windows and pump extra oxygen into the air so you feel less tired, all so you don't realize how long you've been in there.
  
  Still a thing on PC with Uplay and Origin stores sadly.
  
  Shark cards, Robux, that Fortnite currency and many more.
  
  Only for a single game? That shit is in almost every multiplayer game I play nowadays. Valorant, Apex Legends, Dead by Daylight...

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
We've known what Bethesda is for years.

It began with horse armour....

There's people playing Strarfield to get upset in the first place?

Who cares? The community will have player made expansions in a year that will likely be free and of higher quality.
Regardless, BGS is a shell of its former self. Whenever I see people clamoring for TES 6 I just scratch my head and ask why?
Starfield was the final straw for me, I will never get excited for another Bethesda game again. They've shown that they refuse to truly shake up their game design. When people asked if Starfield would have the same magic as FO3 or older TES games, they said, "it'll have the same DNA." I assumed that meant it'd have fun exploration and interesting quests. While it has some decent quests, the exploration is utterly tedious and just unfun. I truly wish they'd had just focused on fleshing out 2 or 3 planets in one solar system, maybe some instanced, hand-crafted dungeons/whatever outside of it. I have zero interest in exploring proc gen worlds, it's not that fun in No Man's Sky and it's not fun here. At least with NMS, it's all relatively seamless.
- For myself and many people Skyrim is the best game they've ever played. It was the first fantasy game I played since Runescape to have multiple cities spread out through an open world, with long narrative multi stage quests involving a number of locations and NPCs. Both games also have a leveling sytem based around you get better at what you use ie "skilling".
  I want "TES 6" in that I want another game that hits those marks, but I no longer trust Bethesda to make it.
  Edit: note I know a lot of people dislike skyrim and think calling it a great game is absurd, and I get the criticism but I love the game anyway
  
  To me that was oblivion, when I got skyrim I just felt burnt out because it felt so similar but at the same time missing some of the stuff I liked like the custom spells etc, then fallout 4 came out and I sort of shelved it but once I got into it I spent soo many hours on it. Maybe it's like cod now where if you skip a few years it's fun again but not every single game because they just aren't that different
- FO4 is why I waited and ultimately didn't buy starfield. I LOVED elderscrolls, and FO:NV is like my alltime favorite. I didn't hate FO4, there's some fun to be had, but you can see pretty clearly from it where FO:76 came from. From what I've seen and read, I'm not missing anything with starfield.
  NMS is tough. They did an amazing job trying to salvage it, but it will always be a game that was never meant to be that big. It's not bad but at somepoint in the loop you just go "wtf am I doing?". I give that team all the credit in the world, but that game never belonged where it is.
  
  New Vegas is notable for not being a Bethesda game per se. It uses something very close to the Fallout 3 engine, but the actual content has little to do with Bethesda. They did publish it, though.
- The same DNA meant they used the same engine and not much else.

How does that horrible game even have players?
- I'm sure a rational response is just going to get downvoted to oblivion, but it's actually a fun game. Not my favorite from Bethesda, but I definitely enjoyed the 1k hours I put into it last year, and I look forward to dipping back in once the DLC drops and there are more mods (not paid creations) available.
  
  Well no downvotes from me, that's a valid opinion.
  
  You’re the actual proof that unpopular opinion does not result in downvotes to oblivion.
  From now on : « remember that guy who said he LIKED Starfield… »
  
  What do you do for 1k hours in Starfield?
- It's free on gamepass
- Tribalism is surprisingly rampant in gaming, especially when a developer picks a side/is acquired by the creator of "their" console.
- Starfield has a lot of good aspects, but also some bone-headed gameplay and content decisions. I had a lot of fun with it for a few weeks and will come back to it if/when it gets to a better state.
- Sunk cost, they pre-ordered it, and they are darn well going to play it, even if they don't enjoy doing so.
  Don't pull the video games especially when they're digitally distributed. It's not like they can run out.
  
  Or they actually enjoy it. Just because you and others don't doesn't mean everyone doesn't. I didn't pay anything for it and thoroughly enjoyed it, and will do so more when the DLC comes out. As with anything there are valid points of criticism but so much of the hate for it is fully because of people's idiocy and not anything else, I've never before seen so much deeply stupid criticism for something.
- People want to believe their lie.

They're selling a single quest as dlc? I mean if you going to do dlc then at least make a full expansion.
- Why waste time with lots of quest when few quest do trick
  
  Right?
  Bethesda just released an expansion for fallout 76. It's a game that I'm fairly fond of, considering the amount of dislike I have for fallout 4, it improved on it in every way from the worldbuilding to building to the story, I could go on, point is, I like it.
  The new expansion, the first map expansion and like 20 major updates in.
  The new map is quite a large region. You'd expect a few side quests to unlock these other locations. Maybe some hidden gems. Maybe some cool NPCs outside of the main "expansion" right?
  Its literally: A main quest that's short (beat it in like 3 hours on the first day it dropped)
  A single side quest that's more of an optional objective on the main quest
  A single new event
  A single new boss.
  Four things they added. Two of which can only be done once (bad formula for a game designed around repeating similar tasks)
  They've just straight up gotten bad. There's no love in their products anymore. It's all taking the easiest way out, lacking any amount of real creativity.
  I just want them to migrate from their shitty proprietary engine, buckle down on a good story and prioritizing fun.
- This is not a new thing, even back in 2012 the much-beloved borderlands 2 got five new missions which cost $2 each.
  
  The thing with those is that, while it was a small amount of content, it wasn't just a mission, each was about an hour of repeatable content that was fairly fun to farm. At $2, they actually still felt worth it with as much fun as B2 was. If they had asked for like $10 each, people would have flipped out.
  I'm not a Starfield player, but I would bet this is not even close to as good of a value proposition.
- Pretty sure it's more of a pricing issue.

- I swear gamers have the memory of a gnat
  It's more a "sucker born every minute" thing.
- This is what happens everywhere: they'll just keep chancing it until such a time as it's acceptable.
- Don't know. Don't play a whole lot of Bethesda games. Didn't play Oblivion. New gamers join the ranks every day. Not everyone has been gaming since the 80's.
- You have to understand.
  The overwhelming bulk of gamers just don't care
  Nothing will stand in the way of getting their current precious. Not even their own complaints and removed.
  They'll sit there and complain about how a company is evil, its practices exploitative, and how everyone should avoid buying from them so they can die in the fires of Bankruptcy.
  Then the second the next game/expansion/DLC/Whatever is announced, they are immediately in line to preorder the ultra deluxe mega fuck you 500 dollar package. because it comes with a unique mount and a special armor skin, and they just cant miss those things! they're rare! and they'll never be able to get them otherwise! /s
  And then they'll go into the obfuscated-cash-shop and spend another 700 dollars on digital bullshit.
  Then, when they are all done, the overwhelming majority of them will come back to the internet, and cry and whinge and moan about how a company is evil, its practices exploitative, and how everyone should avoid buying from them so they can finally die in the fires of bankruptcy.
  Cause the majority of gamers are brain damaged fucktards who, at the end of the day, just love throwing their wallet at things.
  
  I mean this is kind of true of all people everywhere. The marshmallow test has flaws but I think it's still revealing. A lot of people are really bad at self control and delayed gratification.
- Well most modern gamers are probably like 14 years old and probably never even played Skyrim. So I'm not surprised young kids are buying this creation kit garbage with Mommy's credit card.

Why are we surprised? They were the ones who pioneered the DLC microtrans model. I would legitimately have been more surprised if this headline were the converse statement.
- Hehe microtrans. That's me

$500 for a Krabby Patty?
With cheese Mr. Squidward, with cheese.

Starfield could have been a way better game if all they did was fuck it up like 45% less. They could have alternatively just delivered on their promises of making the game easy to mod and let the community handle the rest but they fucked that up too. Only the most dedicated of Starfield fan would have the patience to sit down and do all the shit it takes to add a new quest for example. Iirc even Skyrim came with a mod editor with ui that was easy to understand. Right now all we have is a community xedit project that's somehow even harder to run on Linux than Starfield is.
- Starfield's big problem is it's a huge universe built on an engine that really can't support massive worlds like that. The reason you can't fly around on the surface of a planet is because their crappy engine can't cope with that much space existing, and it can't load more environment when you get to the edges like every other game does because their engine doesn't support proper level streaming.
  If you mod the game to force the issue it gets glitchy very very quickly.
- Skyrim came with a built-in mod editor?
  Are you perhaps thinking of the manager they added on Xbox?
  
  They always release their "Creation Kit" which is apparently also what the Bethesda employees use to build the quests and NPCs in their games:
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/1946180/Skyrim_Special_Edition_Creation_Kit/
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/1946160/Fallout_4_Creation_Kit/
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/2722710/Starfield_Creation_Kit/
  .
  The Starfield Creation Kit was only released a week ago (but I think to remember that there was a big delay in its release for Skyrim and Fallout, too - haven't done any modding since the Skyrim days).
- That sounds like a lot of work. And what for? The game sold well, the next one will as well. Why people buy it? I have no idea.
  
  There was this editor that let you make esm files. I can't remember if it was already in the game folder or you had to download from steam but it must not have been hard to set up. I remember using it to make one of the buyable houses really big on the inside.
- Starfield could have been a way better game if all they did was fuck it up like 45% less.
  Compared to the KOTOR series, it was lifeless. Compared to Mass Effect, it was very boring. Frustrating for a game with such strong precedents to land so weakly. But they put so much energy into quantity of content that they forgot to invest in quality.
  They could have alternatively just delivered on their promises of making the game easy to mod and let the community handle the rest but they fucked that up too.
  The goal was to create a game that procedurally generated itself, not one where individual hobbyists expanded it manually.

It should be standard practice for Bethesda games to wait for a game of the year edition (or whatever they want to call it) then wait for a steam sale on that.
- Bold of you to assume it will come included.

Is repetitive buying of Bethesda games a new kind of litmus test for stupidity? I mean they do this shit constantly and people are still surprised when it happens. Did people really forget horse armor they tried to sell? Or forget about items that were free in Fallout 4, but had to be purchased in 76? It's Bethesda and only one thing Todd dreams about is scamming another dollar from their fans.
- Used to be that they'd sell you both worthless DLC and actually good DLC.
  Knights of the Nine? Awesome. Horse Armor? Worthless.
  Similarly, Skyrim had Dawnguard and Dragonborn which were great. It also had Hearthfire which was kinda meh, but at least it had stuff to do and was cheap, so I'm not too mad about it.
  There was also Shivering Isles, but at the time that was marketed as an expansion pack, not merely a DLC.
  
  ~~Pretty sure shivering isles was Morrowind and horse armor/ nights I'm the nine was oblivion. Those would have come out years apart.~~
  I don't know what I'm talking about this early
- I just buy Bethesda games years after release and have a blast playing them.
  
  If you find that worth it, then sure. Although that won't be the case soon it seems as Todd has a hardon for live services.

- I'm glad I'm not the only one to remember that Dragon Age: Origins quest.
  Its the specific and singular reason why I never bought any of the DLC, or any of the sequels.

So some people are actually playing starfield?

Ah, so that's why it was lacking content.

Lmao. They are basically speedrunning enshittification% at this point.

It's got more content than horse armor though. Totally worth it. ^/s

Not surprised... just upset.

Company that scammed players scams players, more at 7.

I will always see Chloe Grace Moretz on the cover of Starfield.

Is it good though

Bethesda has chosen to make their shit exclusive to a console that is outsold by its completion 2:1.
They’re not exactly the bastions of good ideas.
- Microsoft owns Bethesda, so they probably didn't have a choice
  
  They knew beforehand- and did it anyway:
  https://en.as.com/meristation/news/xbox-knew-from-the-start-that-every-bethesda-game-would-be-an-exclusive-n/?outputType=amp
- What do you mean by this? I've played starfield on pc, is it exclusive to pc?
  
  Can you play it on a PS5? The console that I mentioned that is outselling the Xbox 2 to 1? And both FO and Elder Scrolls will be exclusive. Again, they’re not making good decisions over there.
  I didn’t mention PC. What I’m talking about isn’t about PC. It’s about consoles and their decision to side with Microsoft and lose money.

Has Bethesda actually released a decent game since Daggerfall?
- Ok boomer let's get you to bed
  
  And in my day we couldn't just send boomers to bed with a hand wave, we had to sit through the Clintons' saxophone show first and then we...
- TES III - V were all amazing. Can't wait for TES VI to come out in 2035.
  
  You're wrong, but I'm glad you have had fun and I hope that TESVI isn't a micro transaction fuelled pile of tripe.
- I tried a bunch of Bethesda games in the past and didn't like any of them. I known I'm in the minority when I say that.
- You mean the game that shipped with a bug breaking the main questline?
  
  Yup, that's the one.
  
  Terminator: Future Shock was also a janky mess. They've always released broken games and have some how survived this long.

Honestly I don't care, that's a pretty reasonable price compared to the lot of the content sold for AAA games. This isn't even noteworthy in 2024