No Man’s Sky is one of my all time favorite games now, but many years ago I was a No Man’s Sky hater.
It was no where near what they promised, only now is it even close.
But, they won me over with the free content updates which added features.
I still say that the story and exploration are the weakest elements, but I love flying in that game, the combat, and the ship customization.
The only game which beats it in my book is Starfield.
But, they both have the same problem, procedural generation.
It’s what makes the exploration so dang boring in both games.
I want handmade environments like Skyrim or Fallout 4.
Those games are beautiful works of art, I love them.
When Bethesda procedurally generated all those planets in Starfield, they gave up what makes their games unique and the perfect playgrounds for modders.
I’d rather have fewer planets and solar systems than one thousand planets of boring repetitive POIs.
Mods can only do so much.
I’m saying all that, but I’m saying that Starfield is my favorite Bethesda game.
I love it. I don’t regret getting the most expensive version I could. I even pre-ordered it.
But, it’s the mods which gave it its longevity.
For the first time, besides Minecraft, I paid for mods.
It’s good modders got paid and I get cool stuff to put in my game.
But, that’s not Bethesda, vanilla Starfield wouldn’t be my favorite game they made.
No vanilla Bethesda game would be my favorite, I love modding them. I love them for the mods.
I don’t mod No Man’s Sky. They’re updating it so much they always break the mods.
Enough already!
Stop being so awesome!
😂
I actually need to get back into No Man’s Sky and give Starfield a break, because they recently released a new update. Not to mention my recent attempt at modding Starfield with lots of popular paid mods, and a bunch of others, over 400, resulted in breaking the game’s ability to start a new game. I just haven’t worked up the fortitude to go through 400 plus mods to figure out which one is doing it.
But, I will eventually, because I’m excited to try those mods I bought. I’m just hoping it’s not one of them breaking the game. Ugh.
That’s the problem with modding. Either updates break mods, or mods break games. There’s a happy middle ground where you get to play with mods, but that can take lots of work.
But, to me, it’s worth it. I both do and don’t want Hello Games to stop updating No Man’s Sky so it will stay modded and they won’t break my mod list.
I’m dreading Bethesda updating Starfield and breaking my mod list, I can’t seem to find a way in Steam to stop automatically updating the game.
Yes, I want more official content, but only when my mods are ready for it!
Some won’t ever be ready, modders stop modding for whatever reason and mods don’t get updates for the new version of the game. Some of my favorite mods I’ve had to delete just to keep playing.
I haven’t made any of my own mods since Morrowind. I made rings which allowed me to fly and pick locks. That’s all I did. I’m no programmer. Even the Creation Kit or basic modding tools are beyond me. I hated learning HTML and CSS in college when I was learning how to make websites from scratch, this site is based on WordPress for a reason. I love modders for making vanilla games just plain better.
No Man’s Sky to me is missing that special spark of a good story that keeps me coming back. It’s also missing the exploration I want, but I’m not sure how Hello Games could have made the game without procedural generation.
Starfield, on the other hand, is a Bethesda game. To me, their early Elder Scrolls games with procedural generation are the worst. I’ve played them and got bored quickly. The series, to me, got good with Morrowind. I loved that game, loved Oblivion, adored Skyrim. I’m playing Oblivion Remastered currently when I need a break from science fiction games.
Starfield as it is, by Bethesda, probably wouldn’t even be in my top five. Vanilla Skyrim would be my favorite game by them, I like the main story and the guild side quests, and most of the other side quests. Mods make it even better.
Modded Starfield is my favorite Bethesda game. The Creations menu and Nexus mods. But, I modded it until it broke, now I’ve got to figure out which mod broke it. 😩
Vanilla No Man’s Sky holds up pretty well. I guess. But, I will say while Bethesda doesn’t have the best writing in the world, I prefer the stories in their games to No Man’s Sky. Even though Starfield and No Man’s Sky have somewhat similar endings leading to New Game Plus.
I’ve never New Game Plused in either game. I’m a rampant collector in real life and in video games. I collect weapons, armor, junk, and ships in Starfield, and as much as they’ll let me collect in No Man’s Sky. I build outposts, I buy houses, I decorate them all like museums dedicated to my adventures. I go back and look at my collections of stuff, remembering where I got each item. I don’t do New Game Plus. I play for months on a character until I get bored with them, stop playing for a few months, then create a new character when I feel the itch to play again.
I deleted all my old saves in both games. My collections are gone. I could have started New Game Plus in both, but why would I? I’d be the same boring character.
My next character in No Man’s Sky will be more of an explorer. Yes, I bashed it all this blog entry, but I’m going to do it a tiny bit more to look for trouble. They added more and more stuff while I was taking a break from the game, so now I have more to do.
As for Starfield, my character will be a lady called Captain Nuclear. It’s one of the names that the robot Vasco can say. He’s handy, but I’d never be comfortable with a robot being able to go off and kill without direct orders from a human. That’s despite HK-47 being one of my favorite Star Wars characters, meatbags.
I do tend to play as women if I’m allowed the opportunity in RPG games with a third person view. They’re nicer to look at and modders often make them nicer clothes for some strange reason. 🙄 It’s like playing dress up with a doll, but you get to be the doll. Hahaha 😭😂.
That all started with an old fantasy RPG game with a third person view I don’t remember the name of. A very awkward camera position behind the character. It was a bad game with a bad camera, I didn’t like it at all and hated that camera because no matter what I did it centered on my character’s bum. He was badly modeled, didn’t even have a good bum for a guy game character. So, since then, whenever there’s a third person POV I play as a woman. They’re much nicer to look at from any view.
But, I digress.
I’d still highly recommend No Man’s Sky and Starfield. Don’t jump on the hate train for either game. Maybe wait for a sale for them but try them. You might like them. They’re two of my favorite games, even if they do have what I consider flaws that even modders can’t fix. If you do buy them, mod them, but be careful not to break them. Good luck 🤞.
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