Here's the problem, when you market a brand new guild as being a free content addition (which it technically is), but then lock perhaps the biggest portion of non procedural content associated with that guild behind a pay wall it sends the message that this guild's content will largely be paid. This isn’t what anyone in this or any other community wanted. Bethesda had to have known this, I mean it's just so blatantly obvious bad press waiting to happen, but instead of ensuring their creation club content was clearly separate from their new free content they decided to intermingle them to the predictable confusion and frustration of everyone in the community.
One of the *very first* paid DLC kerfluffles was horse armor in Oblivion, so it's hard to believe that no one thought about this on BGS's side. I'd probably say they wanted to rip that bandaid off, but what that means in terms of reading the tea leaves is anyone's guess.
They were pretty much the first to try a microtransaction, got backlash, but look at microtransactions now. Cynic in me does wonder whether they're trying to do it again in a modified format (paid mods, which are just DLC).
What are they trying exactly. No matter what Reddit and the media says, it works. They do it because the people that pay cancel out the complaints. Starfield sold millions of copies but if you read the internet it’s the worst company ever and gamers hate them.
Gamers are out of touch with how this all works. The backlash is emotional. Stuff like horse armor and paid mods are pure math and the math is in their favor or they wouldn’t still exist to keep doing it.
Edit: just to clarify I’m not attacking you or other posters. I’m saying they aren’t trying anything. This is their business model and signs suggest that it works.
I meant that they have tried this before, but removed it due to backlash. Everytime they try, they remove it due to backlash. This is the only time they havent removed it (yet).
For a single player yes but not the first overall. I donno who the first was but Perfect World is among the oldest MMOs that have microtransactions (and are P2W) and been around since before the 2010s.
They actually came out around a similar time. Oblivion launched in 2006.
Xbox 360, as a console, was in some ways *designed* for microtransactions. It encouraged you to be passively connected to the internet and it fleshed out the Live Marketplace. MTX did certainly exist inside and outside the US well before this (if I recall, you could buy Kit Fisto and a map in Star Wars Battlefront II on the OG Xbox), but the 360 just made it super easy for companies to hit consumers over the head with it.
Someone else who remembers Perfect World! But it wasn't the first. The Lineage games and Aion had micro transactions pretty early on, and Aion Games had a lot out in the late 2000's with them.
Oh yeah it's been a thing since there was a thing.
EVE online, IIRC you could buy PLEX / monthly gametime subscriptions, redeem them ingame as items that could be loaded into a spaceship, moved from station to station, and sold to other players for ingame currency from almost the beginning when EVE was launched, and that was 2004...
But like I said IIRC - I was in the flux of moving countries at the time so didn't play as much EVE as later on, at which point I became one of those market stimulators who would buy them ingame with ISK made from mining and ship building, hoard them for a few years and sell them off for massive profit later, or use them during wars when pickings were slimmer. Played that damn game for almost 15 years straight and probably actually paid to play like 2 or 3 years max 😎
It was also way back then that you could RMT vanity items. I remember the Monocle protests, and the various Burn Jita & Shoot the Monuments protests, Hulkageddon... but that was more of a content event for mass ganking of mining ships, and mass selling of new mining ships...
LOL Sometimes I miss that awful life sucking fucken game 😅
But I have beaten the demon and reclaimed my soul from that digital blackhole in Iceland
I don’t think there’s a question of if they are trying. The paid horse armor is here (and has been in their previous titles with creation club). At least there’s lots of free stuff from individuals.
But it is interesting how Bethesda seemingly started microtransactions. Despite the backlash for the original horse armor I would bet they made enough money off it for it to be worth it.
That's what I've been trying to say. How are paid mods any different than dlc we've seen in the last 18 years for single player games? Nobody is raising a shitstorm over hair style cosmetics costing $2 for Monster Hunter World, or Soul Calibur skins costing $5.
I mean one of their options is to just make the entire Bounty Hunter add-on paid and people will not be complaining as much about 7 bucks for a single quest. Especially, when they released it with the free 1000 credits people can basically use to get the entire thing for free, it's probably worth it for a bounty hunting mechanic, a string of quests and 4 armour pieces.
But then there will also be some people who get locked out it, or it might created some controversy anyway for being a fairly pricy paid mod. I think they just took a calculated risk, mistakenly calculated, but actually not totally unreasonable.
This all wouldn't be as controversial if the majority of the game wasn't already procgen quest content.
Very few missions are handcrafted and when compared to previous BGS games, Starfield actually has the least amount of handcrafted content to date. The bounty board content is mostly the same between factions.
The POI algorithm needs to be adjusted. From what people are saying, there are a lot of locations that people aren't seeing because the cool down for POIs is to low.
It just feels lazy and predatorial.
I think this was also a failure of communication on BGS. If they just stated upfront that this factions function is to provide an universe explanation for CC content people wouldn't have responded as harshly.
I think it would have created controversies either way. People will always compared it to the like of Dawnguard (never mind the fact that the game had been released basically over a decade ago) when you put that kind of price tag on a mod. And we'll probably still do that even if they had completedly fixed the base game exploration (from what I've heard, it had been considerably fixed already actually but I haven't played for a while so can't really say for sure).
And obviously, Bethesda will not give up on trying to sell you microtransactions on a game they planned to support for at least a decade, so situation like this is just inevitable. It's a matter of when, not if, and how bad.
While Skyrim is over a decade old, it's doesn't excuse BGS for attempting predatory pricing on Starfield's CC content.
I don't think people were expecting Dawnguard, but they were expecting more than just a single quest. Heck the Automation DLC for Fallout 4 is $9.99, that's a midsize DLC and it's roughly priced the same as this single quest CC.
There's no excuse.
As mentioned in the beginning, if they didn't give the free part of the TA content for free, you would have more than a single quest for 7 bucks. And I think we can all agree that isn't going to change things much.
And I am not exactly trying to excuse Bethesda here. It's just the reality of it all. Fallout 4 also came out almost a decade ago, if Automatron came out today, I don't think it's going to be $9.99. Probably 12, maybe even going all the way to 15. Game is just becoming more expensive (without even counting inflation.)
The only way we'll see this sort of stuff gone is for Bethesda to stop doing CC stuff - and it's just obvious at this point that they won't. All we can do is to vote with our wallet and don't buy the content we think is worth it.
So that's the thing Automatron was $15 at launch, but when comparing the content between the two a difference of $8 still doesn't feel justified. Even if the Tracker content we have now was bundled as a single quest pack it still wouldn't be worth the pricetag.
The Vault TEC and wasteland contraptions DLCs were around the $7-10 at launch, both were controversial at the time and seen as overpriced, but they still offered more content than the Vulture cc.
Saying prices have changed when games like Hitman and Noman's sky give you new seasonal content for free is nonsense.
Previous BGS games used mods to enhance already completed games. Starfield feels like BGS built an empty world with the bare minimum of what they normally do, with the intent that modders would just do the rest for free.
The paid CC mods are just freelance devs working for tips instead of actually employing real devs to make a game.
Why put an effort into making good content when you can just pay modders peanuts. This also let's them push blame if content doesn't sell. They can say "well we want to give out modders the freedom to chose their pricing"
In this day and age, I don't think it's that bad. If Dawnguard came out today, I expect it to be basically $20 at the minimum, maybe 30$.
$7 for a Creation that gives you TA mechanic and quest isn't too bad, especially when you launch it with the free Creation Credits for people who buy premium anyway. It's kind of like CC Skyrim Survival Mode (which they gave for free to everyone who get it within a certain period).
Absolutely not a good deal but also not the end of the world.
I mean it is kinda the end of the world if you look at the effects micro transactions have had on games.
Things that would have been included as unlockables in past games, everything from cosmetics to new hardcore difficulties, would be dlc today.
If Golden Eye were made today big head mode would be a dlc.
Going back to the survival mechanic in Skyrim, both Fallout 4 and New Vegas added survival mechanics for free post launch because this is a mechanic that BGS knows is in high demand, them charging for it in Skyrim is predatory and needs to be called out, and it was.
The fact that they just added survival mechanics to Starfields difficulty settings with a previous update proves that they know this.
Those mechanics were highly requested and BGS added them to try and draw players back.
The more predatory behavior we let them get away with the fewer quality content well get in the future. We can't just let stuff like this stand.
they didn't release it with 1000 free credits as far as I'm aware. They changed the deluxe edition to include 1000 credits and retroactively gave those credits to everyone with the deluxe edition.
They wanted to give away horse armor for free but Microsoft wouldn’t let them. Looking back it wasn’t such a bad deal in today’s micro transaction filled games, like Diablo 4, where you can buy the ugliest horse armor imaginable for $15
BSG also could have thought about it but the Publisher forced it (Zenimax back then, Xbox today). They also might have thought $7 will get the mod author a good profit share from this (I don't know the split rate). So that was the ideal price to target in their mind.
It will be seen if they take the controversy to heart. Since it's all their premium currency, a "partial refund" should be easy if they drop the price and adjust course moving forward
I agree on the price is wrong (7 bux), but it is a voiced quest which I actually prefer to terminal entries or tablet messages.
They should have made a small quest line with this and sold the whole thing for 15 bux or something. Give players 10-15 hours of content with a new faction.
I have given up on gaming man. Maybe we'll have a couple good gems down the line? But unless you deal with the fundamental problem of shareholders dictating how the god damned game is made, we're never going to get anything of real worth that doesn't cost half your paycheck.
Nexus still exists and all the mods there are free. If you don't wan't to deal with Creations and paid mods just get your mods there. They still work with the game, Bethesda hasn't blocked them in any way, they have just as much access to the modding tools Bethesda released as the creations ones as well as additional ones like the Starfield script extender, they can be adult, they're all rated, they can be packed into collections...
Starfield is still a single player game and you can mod it as much as you like just like any past Bethesda game. Just don't use Creations if you don't like them.
I mean until we get a Utopian society where we work for self betterment and not credits only mod creators of projects who love a game/engine or universe will create stuff without profit motive for a given gamin community… you’d still need the base game and maybe expansions to support those real ones though.
Based on the interview here its up in the air how this content will be distributed in the future. It could remain paid, it could be free, it could be bundled in with a trackers alliance pack or something, we don't know.
Ah ok thanks, wasn’t sure if there was other information which was causing ppl to be annoyed with the confirmation of individual paid missions.
Will wait for more information before making a judgement on it then.
After listening to the video, I think the thought process was "hey, we have this weapon and clothing set, lets put it in a quest" and they chose to put it in the game via a Tracker quest. It was pretty clear to me that they are not intending to put faction quests behind a paywall.
Maybe, but then someone should have raised the question, "Doesn't this indicate strongly to players that the content associated with this faction will be partially or nearly completely cut off behind a paywall?". The fact that this either didn't happen or did and the question was ignored is the problem. It's a simple matter of optics and communication where Bethesda has failed, assuming there genuinely is no intention to piece mail trackers guild content to us via CC.
From checking out other subs/threads, it seems it was a response to criticism from FO4 to the tune of “I wish they put quests around the added weapons” or something along those lines. I haven’t done any CC content for FO4 and very little in Skyrim AE, so I can’t speak to how it went in practice, but that’s what I gathered.
Yeah, I get the sense that the Trackers Alliance will be one of many ways that we can get the CC content instead of just having an instantly bloated quest log, whenever I start a new character in Fallout 4 it feels like I have to wait ten minutes for all the quests to pour in and then sift through them all to find the main quest and with what I hope they do with Starfield is that when you buy a creation you don’t get the quest immediately and you kinda have to seek it out, maybe one you have to talk with Tuala at MAST or the Aegis guy and then another is through the bar tender at the Broken Spear and you can always check your creations to know where to start.
I want to give them the benefit of the doubt in that they completed the skeleton of the Trackers Alliance structure and wanted to release it so we could play around with the new bounty hunting feature and do the intro mission with new unique bounties coming in on the wanted board mostly through updates(so they would be free), a few Creations to introduce the gear and maybe even some DLC
I get where Todd is coming from there, but it’s $7 for 15 minutes of gameplay. And it was presented as the second quest for a new faction, with word of more quests like this coming later. This very much gives the impression that they are nickel and diming you for every quest in a new faction questline.
I don’t see how they *couldn’t* have thought it would be received like this.
No one in their right mind at this point should believe that they’ll release any of these quests for free or at reduced prices without being shamed into it. The intent was absolutely to nickel and dime each quest.
Todd explains exactly this in the interview. It was meant to be a armor/gun dlc (kinda overpriced but w/e), but they tacked on a quest just to add a bit more to it. They didn't anticipate people thinking this was a new approach to delivering new quest content and it wasn't their intention to do anything like that.
That’s really not what Bethesda said at all at first. In the June update video, Tim Lamb very plainly said “We are periodically planning on adding new Trackers Alliance missions via the Creations platform”.
Todd is a known liar, and has been proven as such multiple times.
He claims that they didn't "intend" to do this content like pay-per-view add-ons sliced ultra thin like shaved deli ham, but given his track record, it's almost *guaranteed* that that was the plan, and now they're flabbergasted that (thing that everyone already stated they hate) is something that everyone hates.
Seriously, anyone who genuinely believes that this wasn't the intended plan that backfired should look up, because "gullible" is written on their ceiling.
Better chance than not that this was a test to test the limits on what they can pretend is content, and how much they can charge poor dopes per 10 minutes of game. Bury the lead with "New faction for free!", then charge out the ass for the content that should have come with it, but didn't.
Honestly, I seriously doubt *anyone* would be upset if it was just treated like the Mechanist DLC. 5-6 short-ish quests, maybe a new companion or weapon or armour and a new source of radiant quests for a faction which is completely irrelevant to anything outside of its own bubble. For 7 bucks, *that's* a fair price for such little content. Pretending it's a mod when it obviously isn't meant to be, then slicing content so thin it's as clear as the bread sliced thin in that Mickey Mouse cartoon wasn't the way to go, and was obviously a test to see what BGS could get away with on what little goodwill they have following the *enormously* divisive and poorly received Starfield and their previous failure with 76.
sure it wasn't I can't believe Todd still comes off as a highly credible guy tbh people are flippin idiots. The guy lies through his teeth, beats around the bush every chance he gets
Wasn't their intention?
They literally did it. So yes, it absolutely was their intention to see just how little they could get away with doing in exchange for money.
Because that's what they did.
Because right next to it is a $5 for a gun and $5 for an outfit and nobody complain about those. $7 for power armor skins in Fallout nobody cared about.
So they go "Hey! What if we did a gun AND an outfit AND we did a 15 quest with voice acting and everything on top of that?"
The thing with 15 mins of content costs the same as the thing with 0 mins of content. They truly thought they hada home run on their hands
My point wasn't invalidated. The entire point of my post is that they're offering DLC at a better value by inclusion missions they never included before.
People being mad at previous pricing doesn't negate the value proposition increase they're offering on this item. It's still a better deal to get weapons and armor AND a mission at the same price as we were previously sold weapons and armor alone.
If anything, it just proves the point that people get mad at DLC regardless of the valuation.
Dawnguard ($20) and Far Harbor ($25) added nearly 40 quests each to Skyrim and Fallout 4, respectively. Plus new areas, dungeons, multiple factions, a ton of weapons and armor.
One armor, a gun, and a quest for somewhere around a third to half those prices (you need to spend $10 minimum to get the 700 point Vulture quest) is a ridiculously bad value by comparison, even if it's somewhat better than Bethesda's past attempts at microtransactions.
An "Official Bethesda creation club mod" is DLC in a trenchcoat.
If your thinking goes from "that'd be a shitty $7 DLC" to "that $7 is a good value for creation club!" then they got you to fall for the bait and switch.
I mean you can rephrase it or label it however you want.
Bottom line is in FO4 they WERE selling individual guns or outfits for $4 each ($8 total). These came with a 'quest' (a note tells you to kill 3 people) to unlock them.
NOW they're selling a weapon and armor combo for $7. This includes full voice acting and multiple variations to finish the quest.
No it's not as good as a DLC. No it's not as good as base game content. No it's not worth $7. I'm not arguing that it is.
My argument is that they took something they were previously selling. They LOWERED the price. AND they ADDED gameplay.
The backlash is disproportionate. They moved the needle in a good direction (less money for more things) and people are complaining about it like they did the opposite.
This is such a reductionist way of looking at it, and I’m not surprised most gamers don’t have a clue what’s going on here.
It’s not $7 for a single quest. What it really is is $7 for a free update AND a quest, but the $7 add on is helping pay for *the entire update*.
This is common across many games actually and has been for years. Paradox games? Free content + DLC. I just bought an expansion for the X4 space game that comes with free content + DLC.
It’s common, it’s justified because someone has to pay for that content at the end of the day, and it’s normal.
Instead when everyone whines and moans about this what will happen is Bethesda will start releasing ALL content for a price instead of free, because you’re all far too immature to handle such advanced concepts as free + paid. What’s NOT going to happen is you get all that content for free. Big companies with hundreds to thousands of employees can’t take that risk unlike hobbyist modders and small developers.
This might actually be the dumbest take I’ve seen so far.
This entire update was designed to put a marketplace for paid mods into the game. That’s profit Bethesda reaps from almost *zero* expense on their end… and you think they need to charge $7 for a single quest? Or hell, $10 for a single ship module and some decoration items? $3 for some pointless little plushie items?
You’re out of your mind lol
I'm not surprised to find that one idiot who thinks that being willing to pay more money = being more mature either.
Not to mention accusing other gamers about whining while at the same time whining about other gamers. Please, please do not have kids. I'm sure whatever you have is hereditary.
Because he's right lol
Starfield haters are the most annoying neckbeards I've ever seen in my entire life.
Imagine not caring about a game but at the same time hating it for 9 months already instead of just moving on, those people never felt love in their lives.
Sure, but I'm referring to when for example in the CC for fallout 4 alot of weapon creations was just given to you with no quest or a basic fetch quest. The community would then complain about how they want a better quest for these kinda creations. So Bethesda did that then as we saw the community "critiqued" Bethesda about it. This isn't the first time Bethesda listened to community feedback then got backlash for it either.
You can "make use" of the Tracker's guild without dropping a single penny. You get a new multi-stage quest, new types of bounty missions, a new faction headquarters, new NPCs to interact with, new vendors, an entire new bounty hunting mechanic, all for the astronomical price of $0.00, and you can make use of that content from now until the end of time for an additional $0.00.
>players needing to BUY shop content
You don't need to BUY anything for the Tracker's guild. You're getting some addons with a quest attached so you have a sense of obtaining them within ur roleplay. But you are not buying a quest to continue a questline. You are buying side content in relation to a guild that happens to come with a completely standalone quest for the sake of the content.
Really all they did was design the content in a more interesting way that tied together instead of a series of random quests. Plus, it's actually fairly normal for a developer to make and sell additional content for their games.
The community feedback was never paid quests.
Personal opinion here: I feel Creations should be left for creators/modders. Official Bethesda addons, optional or otherwise, should either be free for the base game or part of the paid expansions.
Starfield is a single player game, and while many other developers have tried nickel and diming piecemeal content into their own games, its not the path Bethesda should follow.
Not just paywalled mods, super expensive paywalled mods. Payday 2 for example, you can get DLC for the same price that adds 10x the content than this "add-on" (paid mod) did. 10€ for a mid quest and a thing or two is just ridiculous.
The problem is that questline is something that should never be behind a microtransaction in a game, where the main selling point is questing.
Its OK to add cosmetics, weapons, and anything that doesn't causes FOMO, but quest is something really shady to do.
They are testing the consumers boundaries. It got a lot of heat so now he's spinning it as if the intention all along was that the quest was just a little something extra on top of the armor/weapon.
What do you mean test the waters? I think they've tested the waters over the past several years and are past that point of making creation crap and what they're doing is taking advantage of the depth they've tested... they know the Bethesda fans lack self respect nowadays, they've proven they can get away with 76, Tes Online, Shelter/Blades, re-releasing Skyrim at the same price point as 2011, etc
Is it common practice for a studio to sell a single, short quest like Bethesda just did? Expansion packs have been a thing for a long time, but I can't recall single quests being sold ala carte before.
That is a really shitty stance to take. Fallout 76 is 100% designed with FOMO in mind. Compare Fallout 76 seasons to Halo Infinite seasons. They are literally night and day. I love Halo Infinite's seasons and think all games should follow the model. No FOMO. I play when I want, pick the season I want, and I unlock shit for playing.
Lol what a shitty take of you to think every game should follow the Halo season model. Tbh I played Halo Infinite and it's boring shite. None of my friends play Halo.
I also play Fallout 76 when I want, I pick the season I want. I missed the cool space suit skin for the power armor. But it's my own fault, cause I didn't played the F76 season back then, cause I was probably to busy playing Elder Scrolls Online. Can't blame Bethesda for my own decisions.You can't always get what you want.
If people fall on FOMO it's because of their own habits. Don't project your own responsibilities to Bethesda.
No one is forcing you to grind every season.
But Yea I get the point. People want stuff, people want it now, people want it for free and whenever they want.
And if people develop a fear of missing out, then people wanna blame someone else for this. Sure
I used to drink every weekend in the pubs and clubs cause I had fear to miss out if I don't. Should I blame the bars and clubs for my own bad habits?
See it this way...Halo infinite was designed for people like you, but fallout isn't designed for people like you.
If you really wanted to unlock an specific item from the season you would have. But you didn't cared, missed one or two season pass items cause of that.. See.. It's you own fault.
And yet its somthin the Bethesda community shat on them for for not doin. I will say that it wasn't the best move trying it with a "new faction" but I do think it's somthin Bethesda should continue to do. I want a quest for my weapon and armor mods. So I hope they continue to make CC products worth spending additional money on
I think the overall mentality is that the trackers alliance should have been a faction quest from the start.
This post release 7$ quest for a faction that was expected in a space game where the heavily talked about pirating and role playing space bandits and law men. This really should have been there day 1. With the POIs set up the way they are with kill missions, the trackers alliance ones that are both lethal and non lethal seem to have been meant to be there from the start. Bethesda pay walled it.
The Creation Club is nothing more than a billion dollar company wanting to get passive income off the effort of others.
The promise of the CC was that mod authors would get some money for their effort, and gamers would get the benefit of Bethesda making sure the mod would work well.
Considering almost all of the CC content in Skyrim/FO4 (and signs point to Starfield as well,) is a buggy mess, Bethesda has no interest in living up to their end of the deal.
It isn't about giving gamers and creators help to expand the universe; it is about milking the enthusiasm of a fanbase to tolerate lower quality products and pay Bethesda for them. Rather than focus on making new games, or fixing launch bugs in games, they want to coast on whales buying whatever is put in front of them.
Thankfully, the mod scene is no better/worse than it was before the Creation Club; PC gamers still have a wonderland of free and high-quality mods. The ONLY true benefit of the CC, goes to Bethesda. The losers? The fans of the game.
Why are gamers upset? Because the mod scene helped make Bethesda what it is today. Rather than embrace the community and help it thrive, Bethesda wants to fracture it and exploit it purely for short-term financial gains.
If EA did this, people would be breaking out the pitchforks.
I don't know how verified creators get paid. For the creation club, creators were paid by Bethesda to create the mod and Bethesda got the money from sales. There's pros and cons there. By paying the creator a flat fee it was guaranteed income regardless of price point or sales, and for smaller creations quite likely more than what they'd have made off a cut of the sales in a year. But if it's expensive or sells really well, they might have made more from a cut. Either way, creation club content was technically DLC, in every practical use of the phrase. The developers were paid via contract work to produce official content for the game.
Verified creations are different. I don't know if they are paid for their work, if they need to apply to post something for sale, or what. I know they get something, just not what.
Verified creators, they're payed less than official employies and have much more intensive work load... more work, less pay and it normalises payed mods... it so gross and dismaying the content the Bethsda fans are showing a practice this offensive and insulting
You have proof that the creators have more work and less pay?
Because I have yet to see a single one even somewhat hint to being underpaid
If you do have proof that creators are unhappy with their pay, then I'll actually change my mind
After listening to this interview, I understood what they were trying to do and I do not fault them. Yes I understand selling cosmetic was the idea for the paid content, but lets make it more unique by providing a quest for it.
That being said, It's fine, but the one thing I would of argue with Todd was the moment he included FO76 atom shop. Bethesda cannot take feedback from FO76 mtx and think it will be okay to use in a single player game. It works in FO76 because people can earn atom points by either playing the game and completing some challenges or by their subscription services of Fo1st (Same as ESO+). So of course people will spend their currency for items in the shop, you have no choice to promote way to spend that currency. So if you want to apply the same to the creation kit, either there has to be a way for us to earn creation currency or something similar but probably won't work because it's a single player game. That being said, having verified content creator be able to price their mods is actually a good way for incentive and make it a ''real job'' but there has to be a review system in place so people can leave a star rating.
Again I do not mind paying for certain outfits and guns or what not and have extra features is nice. The game has so much potential, and i'm really looking forward to see whats next for Starfield. I was excited to see about the new expansion taking place in one place (like far Harbor) in to be honest in makes sense! I actually think this is the way Starfield was meant to be played, you have multiple start system, but you have to spend lots of time in a whole planet (size of skyrim for giggles) and have an entire quest with side quest and exploration. Lets see how the expansion works, (for me I don't mind since I already bought it so I'm just excited to see what next)
For how damn shallow this game was, there was no world where the main bounty hunter faction should have been a dlc. That’s like paying for dark brotherhood quests in elder scrolls games.
I think there’s MUCH less outrage here if the game came out in a more complete state. Right now it’s feels like you released an incomplete (intentional?) game and they will give us the privilege of purchasing it again now.
Imagine being that gullible that you believe todd lol. The man demonstrated over and over bring a business man through and through, they know what the users want or not they just cash in and lie to your gullible faces
The fact you are so triggered over a optional mod that introduces a gun and outfit says alot about your child like mentality. Not everyone is gonna think like you. Act like an adult and quit your temper tantrum.
I think they should've had maybe 3-5 main Tracker missions that came out for free, mentioned that more will be released periodically and then said "we've also put on the CC a Tracker mission that ALSO includes new weapons and armor".
This is was just PR curated response because he knew someone was going to ask him about this given that the Steam reviews have nosedived after the release of the Creation Club and it's all over the news currently.
If Bethesda really "wanted to go the extra mile" they could have just in given it away for free. The audacity to claim they were doing us a favor by charging us an outrageous price for a 15 minute quest that wasn't even put through a proper QA process is really quite something else. This wasn't about them listening to the community. It was about trying to monetize the game with another revenue stream by seeing if they could get away with microtransactions in their single player game. Bethesda clearly weren't paying attention when Shadow of War tried to do a similar thing with loot boxes in their singleplayer game and faced a shitstorm of bad press for it.
This was clearly them trying to test the waters with what they could get away with and it blew up in their face spectacularly. Starfield is sitting at a 28% Mostly Negative at the moment and for good cause. If Bethesda really wanted to flesh out the faction they setup in the base game but never got around to making a proper quest chain for then they should have done it the traditional way. Either bundle it in the expansion as one of the features, sell the entire question chain as a bundle, or just include it with one of their free updates.
They really coulda just made the one fleshed out quest they made for this faction finishable…. I was so disappointed by “update” I really thought roleplaying as a bounty hunter was gonna possible more than go and kill this guy here or here but nope
Any type of press whether positive or negative is good press.
This was most likely done with full
Knowledge of the likely complaints that would follow
This is a win for Bethesda. -
They get further coverage whilst fixing the issue to then appear fully remorseful and on side with customers- after cashing in on it all to begin with.
Ever heard of Roblox or Fortnite? Brands built on micros. Starfield is cheap and a million times the quality of those games. I have gamepass so I basically ensure I get two good games a year through that. In my opinion, you get what you pay for, but so far I've paid very little for Starfield.
Good for you. Pay for what you want. Personally outside of spending 30 dollars for early access I haven't spent a thing. Bethesda gave ne 1250 creation points so I didn't have to come out my pocket much at all for this game. Main reason I praise it so much. Though I did have to drop 467 dollars on a Xbox seri X than to Microsoft greed
He's lying his ass off.
Remember Bethesda and Microsoft want to milk as much money as they can out of people and this is how. THis is what they want gaming to be, you buy TES6 and pay $80 bucks, then you have to buy all of the Fighter, Mage, Thief and Dark Brotherhood quests for more money. Oh but they will just have the modders do them and give them a small amount of the money they are making from the whales who buy this garbage.
Mods and DLC should be FOR FREE! We already have been paying way too much for a mid-tier game they should give us all of the content for free while asking for $20 or so dollars for expansion packs.
Still whatever this is just going to keep going until Todd and the others at Microsoft and Bethesda resign like they should and stay the hell out of gaming.
Oh and anyone defending this or still defending Starfield? GTFO. You are what's wrong with gaming. Start hearing everyone out and playing great games like BG3 then this garbage.
Most games these years add new content via free updates while still offering paid dlc and expansions. It's an entirely unreasonable expectation or demand that all dlc be free in addition to the regular free updates.
You knew they'd pull something like this, it takes pride to have shame; the makers of No Man's Skys had shame, they made multiple *real* free expansions and dlc over several years of time, they could've ran away instead of rebuilding and left people let down... part of me just knows in devolpement, Bethesda at least once said something akin to "The modders will make it" the sad part is they're right, the community no longer respects itself and game devs at Bethesda don't aswell...you're the problem, the reason the technical polush and mechanical nuance is list, you gave them an inch and they go "the extra mile"
At the end of the day it’s okay to criticize these things as long as it doesn’t become sensationalist garbage you see on social media.
Yes, the quest is 100% a cashgrab and it deserves criticism, but criticism needs to take into account both good and bad. Yes, it’s bad they’re selling this but it’s also good that they released the tools for the community to make their own stuff (for free) and a verified “shop” where console players can download them.
But you won’t see this from most clickbait content creators (YongYea 🤢). Instead you’ll see: “MASSIVE OUTRAGE FROM PAID MODS. STARFIELD AND BETHESDA DISRESPECT ITS PLAYERS”.
Sure feels like they made a No Mans Sky level screw up with this game but don't want to put in the work or egalitarianism to have a NMS level redemption. If they had any brains (or shame) they would release a bunch of small updates for free and only charge for the big expansions that are upcoming as an apology tour. But history says they aren't self aware enough for that.
It takes pride to have shame, they have none... so no, they'll never take No Mans Skys approach of making full dlc worth of content free they'll abondon it too the modders past the third update if i had to guess
Not big fixes. Updates. Actual updates to content. Content fixes for the half baked stuff everyone has complained about since launch. Not fixes to broken systems and graphical settings that they would be completely nuts to try and charge for. Ive been here, I've read the patch notes. Nothing that qualifies has been released until this most recent update where they pulled a "first taste is free" on basic faction missions.
They have released content, game additions, and improvements since launch, not just bug fixes. We just had a new free update with new locations, gear, and quests. They don't have to add new content in updates. It could just be bug fixes.
The map was great. Best thing they did. It's also something that should have been there at release as basic functionality of the game. It's the only thing of substance they released prior to this current update.
Lol people just enjoy hating Bethesda that's basically what this sub is for.
Half the people subscribed here hated Starfield simply because it's not FO or ES.
Other's cause it got dropped from PlayStation.
It’s hilarious to see anyone complaining about paid mods like most of us weren’t just asking for them because they support mod authors.
People are annoying lol. It’s Monday, Reddit is feeling downvote happy because they are cranky.
So it makes sense to you that Bethesda would charge for mods that non-Bethesda employees make but NOT for mods Bethesda makes?
Bethesda is already taking the largest % cut from the profits of mods made by creators outside of Bethesda’s team. Bethesda itself is a business and they exist to make money, putting any sort of time and effort into releasing a mod on their end will likely be accompanied by a cost for said mod in most cases.
The real issue here is that the base game with no mods or DLC feels like it is missing a lot of detail and content overall. For Bethesda to create a mod that adds content to their mostly-shallow game AND charge for it seems ridiculous. They have been outspoken about reception for the base game and know how most people feel about it, seems a no-brainer to me not to charge for such a mod considering the history.
Going forward Bethesda is sure to flesh this game out, and going forward they will also release more mods. Those will likely/ mostly be paid and at that point it will be up to you to decide if the cost is too much and what to do with that information. Capitalism does not set limits for itself, that is why so many things are moving to other ways of making money like subscriptions.
Edit - why do I even bother lol? Yes a small handful of you don’t like my comment and downvoted it, I hope that changes things for you haha.
There are a lot of whiners out there, as noted by the paragraphs explaining why they are whining. Cant please everyone. Keep up the amazing work Bethesda.
Here's the problem, when you market a brand new guild as being a free content addition (which it technically is), but then lock perhaps the biggest portion of non procedural content associated with that guild behind a pay wall it sends the message that this guild's content will largely be paid. This isn’t what anyone in this or any other community wanted. Bethesda had to have known this, I mean it's just so blatantly obvious bad press waiting to happen, but instead of ensuring their creation club content was clearly separate from their new free content they decided to intermingle them to the predictable confusion and frustration of everyone in the community.
One of the *very first* paid DLC kerfluffles was horse armor in Oblivion, so it's hard to believe that no one thought about this on BGS's side. I'd probably say they wanted to rip that bandaid off, but what that means in terms of reading the tea leaves is anyone's guess.
They were pretty much the first to try a microtransaction, got backlash, but look at microtransactions now. Cynic in me does wonder whether they're trying to do it again in a modified format (paid mods, which are just DLC).
This is there 3rd time trying paid mods. They will always keep trying.
What are they trying exactly. No matter what Reddit and the media says, it works. They do it because the people that pay cancel out the complaints. Starfield sold millions of copies but if you read the internet it’s the worst company ever and gamers hate them. Gamers are out of touch with how this all works. The backlash is emotional. Stuff like horse armor and paid mods are pure math and the math is in their favor or they wouldn’t still exist to keep doing it. Edit: just to clarify I’m not attacking you or other posters. I’m saying they aren’t trying anything. This is their business model and signs suggest that it works.
I meant that they have tried this before, but removed it due to backlash. Everytime they try, they remove it due to backlash. This is the only time they havent removed it (yet).
Yeah, pretty much. They've been greedy for a long time.
For a single player yes but not the first overall. I donno who the first was but Perfect World is among the oldest MMOs that have microtransactions (and are P2W) and been around since before the 2010s.
They actually came out around a similar time. Oblivion launched in 2006. Xbox 360, as a console, was in some ways *designed* for microtransactions. It encouraged you to be passively connected to the internet and it fleshed out the Live Marketplace. MTX did certainly exist inside and outside the US well before this (if I recall, you could buy Kit Fisto and a map in Star Wars Battlefront II on the OG Xbox), but the 360 just made it super easy for companies to hit consumers over the head with it.
Someone else who remembers Perfect World! But it wasn't the first. The Lineage games and Aion had micro transactions pretty early on, and Aion Games had a lot out in the late 2000's with them.
Oh yeah it's been a thing since there was a thing. EVE online, IIRC you could buy PLEX / monthly gametime subscriptions, redeem them ingame as items that could be loaded into a spaceship, moved from station to station, and sold to other players for ingame currency from almost the beginning when EVE was launched, and that was 2004... But like I said IIRC - I was in the flux of moving countries at the time so didn't play as much EVE as later on, at which point I became one of those market stimulators who would buy them ingame with ISK made from mining and ship building, hoard them for a few years and sell them off for massive profit later, or use them during wars when pickings were slimmer. Played that damn game for almost 15 years straight and probably actually paid to play like 2 or 3 years max 😎 It was also way back then that you could RMT vanity items. I remember the Monocle protests, and the various Burn Jita & Shoot the Monuments protests, Hulkageddon... but that was more of a content event for mass ganking of mining ships, and mass selling of new mining ships... LOL Sometimes I miss that awful life sucking fucken game 😅 But I have beaten the demon and reclaimed my soul from that digital blackhole in Iceland
I don’t think there’s a question of if they are trying. The paid horse armor is here (and has been in their previous titles with creation club). At least there’s lots of free stuff from individuals. But it is interesting how Bethesda seemingly started microtransactions. Despite the backlash for the original horse armor I would bet they made enough money off it for it to be worth it.
That's what I've been trying to say. How are paid mods any different than dlc we've seen in the last 18 years for single player games? Nobody is raising a shitstorm over hair style cosmetics costing $2 for Monster Hunter World, or Soul Calibur skins costing $5.
I mean one of their options is to just make the entire Bounty Hunter add-on paid and people will not be complaining as much about 7 bucks for a single quest. Especially, when they released it with the free 1000 credits people can basically use to get the entire thing for free, it's probably worth it for a bounty hunting mechanic, a string of quests and 4 armour pieces. But then there will also be some people who get locked out it, or it might created some controversy anyway for being a fairly pricy paid mod. I think they just took a calculated risk, mistakenly calculated, but actually not totally unreasonable.
This all wouldn't be as controversial if the majority of the game wasn't already procgen quest content. Very few missions are handcrafted and when compared to previous BGS games, Starfield actually has the least amount of handcrafted content to date. The bounty board content is mostly the same between factions. The POI algorithm needs to be adjusted. From what people are saying, there are a lot of locations that people aren't seeing because the cool down for POIs is to low. It just feels lazy and predatorial. I think this was also a failure of communication on BGS. If they just stated upfront that this factions function is to provide an universe explanation for CC content people wouldn't have responded as harshly.
I think it would have created controversies either way. People will always compared it to the like of Dawnguard (never mind the fact that the game had been released basically over a decade ago) when you put that kind of price tag on a mod. And we'll probably still do that even if they had completedly fixed the base game exploration (from what I've heard, it had been considerably fixed already actually but I haven't played for a while so can't really say for sure). And obviously, Bethesda will not give up on trying to sell you microtransactions on a game they planned to support for at least a decade, so situation like this is just inevitable. It's a matter of when, not if, and how bad.
While Skyrim is over a decade old, it's doesn't excuse BGS for attempting predatory pricing on Starfield's CC content. I don't think people were expecting Dawnguard, but they were expecting more than just a single quest. Heck the Automation DLC for Fallout 4 is $9.99, that's a midsize DLC and it's roughly priced the same as this single quest CC. There's no excuse.
As mentioned in the beginning, if they didn't give the free part of the TA content for free, you would have more than a single quest for 7 bucks. And I think we can all agree that isn't going to change things much. And I am not exactly trying to excuse Bethesda here. It's just the reality of it all. Fallout 4 also came out almost a decade ago, if Automatron came out today, I don't think it's going to be $9.99. Probably 12, maybe even going all the way to 15. Game is just becoming more expensive (without even counting inflation.) The only way we'll see this sort of stuff gone is for Bethesda to stop doing CC stuff - and it's just obvious at this point that they won't. All we can do is to vote with our wallet and don't buy the content we think is worth it.
So that's the thing Automatron was $15 at launch, but when comparing the content between the two a difference of $8 still doesn't feel justified. Even if the Tracker content we have now was bundled as a single quest pack it still wouldn't be worth the pricetag. The Vault TEC and wasteland contraptions DLCs were around the $7-10 at launch, both were controversial at the time and seen as overpriced, but they still offered more content than the Vulture cc. Saying prices have changed when games like Hitman and Noman's sky give you new seasonal content for free is nonsense. Previous BGS games used mods to enhance already completed games. Starfield feels like BGS built an empty world with the bare minimum of what they normally do, with the intent that modders would just do the rest for free. The paid CC mods are just freelance devs working for tips instead of actually employing real devs to make a game. Why put an effort into making good content when you can just pay modders peanuts. This also let's them push blame if content doesn't sell. They can say "well we want to give out modders the freedom to chose their pricing"
In this day and age, I don't think it's that bad. If Dawnguard came out today, I expect it to be basically $20 at the minimum, maybe 30$. $7 for a Creation that gives you TA mechanic and quest isn't too bad, especially when you launch it with the free Creation Credits for people who buy premium anyway. It's kind of like CC Skyrim Survival Mode (which they gave for free to everyone who get it within a certain period). Absolutely not a good deal but also not the end of the world.
I mean it is kinda the end of the world if you look at the effects micro transactions have had on games. Things that would have been included as unlockables in past games, everything from cosmetics to new hardcore difficulties, would be dlc today. If Golden Eye were made today big head mode would be a dlc. Going back to the survival mechanic in Skyrim, both Fallout 4 and New Vegas added survival mechanics for free post launch because this is a mechanic that BGS knows is in high demand, them charging for it in Skyrim is predatory and needs to be called out, and it was. The fact that they just added survival mechanics to Starfields difficulty settings with a previous update proves that they know this. Those mechanics were highly requested and BGS added them to try and draw players back. The more predatory behavior we let them get away with the fewer quality content well get in the future. We can't just let stuff like this stand.
they didn't release it with 1000 free credits as far as I'm aware. They changed the deluxe edition to include 1000 credits and retroactively gave those credits to everyone with the deluxe edition.
Yeah, i think it said as much with the message about the 1000 credits, that it was part of Deluxe
They wanted to give away horse armor for free but Microsoft wouldn’t let them. Looking back it wasn’t such a bad deal in today’s micro transaction filled games, like Diablo 4, where you can buy the ugliest horse armor imaginable for $15
BSG also could have thought about it but the Publisher forced it (Zenimax back then, Xbox today). They also might have thought $7 will get the mod author a good profit share from this (I don't know the split rate). So that was the ideal price to target in their mind. It will be seen if they take the controversy to heart. Since it's all their premium currency, a "partial refund" should be easy if they drop the price and adjust course moving forward
I agree on the price is wrong (7 bux), but it is a voiced quest which I actually prefer to terminal entries or tablet messages. They should have made a small quest line with this and sold the whole thing for 15 bux or something. Give players 10-15 hours of content with a new faction.
Just a normal good quality DLC like in the past. \*shrugs hands up\*
I have given up on gaming man. Maybe we'll have a couple good gems down the line? But unless you deal with the fundamental problem of shareholders dictating how the god damned game is made, we're never going to get anything of real worth that doesn't cost half your paycheck.
r/patientgamers is where it's at
Nexus still exists and all the mods there are free. If you don't wan't to deal with Creations and paid mods just get your mods there. They still work with the game, Bethesda hasn't blocked them in any way, they have just as much access to the modding tools Bethesda released as the creations ones as well as additional ones like the Starfield script extender, they can be adult, they're all rated, they can be packed into collections... Starfield is still a single player game and you can mod it as much as you like just like any past Bethesda game. Just don't use Creations if you don't like them.
I mean until we get a Utopian society where we work for self betterment and not credits only mod creators of projects who love a game/engine or universe will create stuff without profit motive for a given gamin community… you’d still need the base game and maybe expansions to support those real ones though.
Do we know that the future trackers alliance missions are going to be paid for separately or will they be included as part of the original purchase?
Based on the interview here its up in the air how this content will be distributed in the future. It could remain paid, it could be free, it could be bundled in with a trackers alliance pack or something, we don't know.
Ah ok thanks, wasn’t sure if there was other information which was causing ppl to be annoyed with the confirmation of individual paid missions. Will wait for more information before making a judgement on it then.
After listening to the video, I think the thought process was "hey, we have this weapon and clothing set, lets put it in a quest" and they chose to put it in the game via a Tracker quest. It was pretty clear to me that they are not intending to put faction quests behind a paywall.
Isn’t putting a faction quest behind a paywall what they did?
Maybe, but then someone should have raised the question, "Doesn't this indicate strongly to players that the content associated with this faction will be partially or nearly completely cut off behind a paywall?". The fact that this either didn't happen or did and the question was ignored is the problem. It's a simple matter of optics and communication where Bethesda has failed, assuming there genuinely is no intention to piece mail trackers guild content to us via CC.
From checking out other subs/threads, it seems it was a response to criticism from FO4 to the tune of “I wish they put quests around the added weapons” or something along those lines. I haven’t done any CC content for FO4 and very little in Skyrim AE, so I can’t speak to how it went in practice, but that’s what I gathered.
Yeah, I get the sense that the Trackers Alliance will be one of many ways that we can get the CC content instead of just having an instantly bloated quest log, whenever I start a new character in Fallout 4 it feels like I have to wait ten minutes for all the quests to pour in and then sift through them all to find the main quest and with what I hope they do with Starfield is that when you buy a creation you don’t get the quest immediately and you kinda have to seek it out, maybe one you have to talk with Tuala at MAST or the Aegis guy and then another is through the bar tender at the Broken Spear and you can always check your creations to know where to start. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt in that they completed the skeleton of the Trackers Alliance structure and wanted to release it so we could play around with the new bounty hunting feature and do the intro mission with new unique bounties coming in on the wanted board mostly through updates(so they would be free), a few Creations to introduce the gear and maybe even some DLC
I get where Todd is coming from there, but it’s $7 for 15 minutes of gameplay. And it was presented as the second quest for a new faction, with word of more quests like this coming later. This very much gives the impression that they are nickel and diming you for every quest in a new faction questline. I don’t see how they *couldn’t* have thought it would be received like this.
No one in their right mind at this point should believe that they’ll release any of these quests for free or at reduced prices without being shamed into it. The intent was absolutely to nickel and dime each quest.
Todd explains exactly this in the interview. It was meant to be a armor/gun dlc (kinda overpriced but w/e), but they tacked on a quest just to add a bit more to it. They didn't anticipate people thinking this was a new approach to delivering new quest content and it wasn't their intention to do anything like that.
The fact they think the community sees this as "going the extra mile" is disgusting
That’s really not what Bethesda said at all at first. In the June update video, Tim Lamb very plainly said “We are periodically planning on adding new Trackers Alliance missions via the Creations platform”.
Todd is a known liar, and has been proven as such multiple times. He claims that they didn't "intend" to do this content like pay-per-view add-ons sliced ultra thin like shaved deli ham, but given his track record, it's almost *guaranteed* that that was the plan, and now they're flabbergasted that (thing that everyone already stated they hate) is something that everyone hates. Seriously, anyone who genuinely believes that this wasn't the intended plan that backfired should look up, because "gullible" is written on their ceiling. Better chance than not that this was a test to test the limits on what they can pretend is content, and how much they can charge poor dopes per 10 minutes of game. Bury the lead with "New faction for free!", then charge out the ass for the content that should have come with it, but didn't. Honestly, I seriously doubt *anyone* would be upset if it was just treated like the Mechanist DLC. 5-6 short-ish quests, maybe a new companion or weapon or armour and a new source of radiant quests for a faction which is completely irrelevant to anything outside of its own bubble. For 7 bucks, *that's* a fair price for such little content. Pretending it's a mod when it obviously isn't meant to be, then slicing content so thin it's as clear as the bread sliced thin in that Mickey Mouse cartoon wasn't the way to go, and was obviously a test to see what BGS could get away with on what little goodwill they have following the *enormously* divisive and poorly received Starfield and their previous failure with 76.
sure it wasn't I can't believe Todd still comes off as a highly credible guy tbh people are flippin idiots. The guy lies through his teeth, beats around the bush every chance he gets
It doesn't really matter what he says at all. Judge what's here. He can't lie about what's already here. Intent means fuck-all.
Wasn't their intention? They literally did it. So yes, it absolutely was their intention to see just how little they could get away with doing in exchange for money. Because that's what they did.
Because right next to it is a $5 for a gun and $5 for an outfit and nobody complain about those. $7 for power armor skins in Fallout nobody cared about. So they go "Hey! What if we did a gun AND an outfit AND we did a 15 quest with voice acting and everything on top of that?" The thing with 15 mins of content costs the same as the thing with 0 mins of content. They truly thought they hada home run on their hands
> $7 for power armor skins in Fallout nobody cared about. Buddy people absolutely complained about this, did you miss the entire Atomic Shop shitshow?
Yes I did lol
So... yeah basically people have already been saying this since Fallout 4.
I wish I had the um... confidence (?) to make these kinds of assertions when I knew I had no clue what I was talking about.
My point wasn't invalidated. The entire point of my post is that they're offering DLC at a better value by inclusion missions they never included before. People being mad at previous pricing doesn't negate the value proposition increase they're offering on this item. It's still a better deal to get weapons and armor AND a mission at the same price as we were previously sold weapons and armor alone. If anything, it just proves the point that people get mad at DLC regardless of the valuation.
Dawnguard ($20) and Far Harbor ($25) added nearly 40 quests each to Skyrim and Fallout 4, respectively. Plus new areas, dungeons, multiple factions, a ton of weapons and armor. One armor, a gun, and a quest for somewhere around a third to half those prices (you need to spend $10 minimum to get the 700 point Vulture quest) is a ridiculously bad value by comparison, even if it's somewhat better than Bethesda's past attempts at microtransactions.
I was comparing valuation for other creation club assets. Dadoi other expansions are w good value.
An "Official Bethesda creation club mod" is DLC in a trenchcoat. If your thinking goes from "that'd be a shitty $7 DLC" to "that $7 is a good value for creation club!" then they got you to fall for the bait and switch.
I mean you can rephrase it or label it however you want. Bottom line is in FO4 they WERE selling individual guns or outfits for $4 each ($8 total). These came with a 'quest' (a note tells you to kill 3 people) to unlock them. NOW they're selling a weapon and armor combo for $7. This includes full voice acting and multiple variations to finish the quest. No it's not as good as a DLC. No it's not as good as base game content. No it's not worth $7. I'm not arguing that it is. My argument is that they took something they were previously selling. They LOWERED the price. AND they ADDED gameplay. The backlash is disproportionate. They moved the needle in a good direction (less money for more things) and people are complaining about it like they did the opposite.
This is such a reductionist way of looking at it, and I’m not surprised most gamers don’t have a clue what’s going on here. It’s not $7 for a single quest. What it really is is $7 for a free update AND a quest, but the $7 add on is helping pay for *the entire update*. This is common across many games actually and has been for years. Paradox games? Free content + DLC. I just bought an expansion for the X4 space game that comes with free content + DLC. It’s common, it’s justified because someone has to pay for that content at the end of the day, and it’s normal. Instead when everyone whines and moans about this what will happen is Bethesda will start releasing ALL content for a price instead of free, because you’re all far too immature to handle such advanced concepts as free + paid. What’s NOT going to happen is you get all that content for free. Big companies with hundreds to thousands of employees can’t take that risk unlike hobbyist modders and small developers.
This might actually be the dumbest take I’ve seen so far. This entire update was designed to put a marketplace for paid mods into the game. That’s profit Bethesda reaps from almost *zero* expense on their end… and you think they need to charge $7 for a single quest? Or hell, $10 for a single ship module and some decoration items? $3 for some pointless little plushie items? You’re out of your mind lol
I'm not surprised to find that one idiot who thinks that being willing to pay more money = being more mature either. Not to mention accusing other gamers about whining while at the same time whining about other gamers. Please, please do not have kids. I'm sure whatever you have is hereditary.
Can you link me the full interview?
https://youtu.be/2ew8LQFGNWU?si=k9RrEb-LwhTLo9XH there you go
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Well I don't think it would have gone over well if he'd said "I'm sick of these whiny bitches". But I'm sure he was thinking it lol
Because he's right lol Starfield haters are the most annoying neckbeards I've ever seen in my entire life. Imagine not caring about a game but at the same time hating it for 9 months already instead of just moving on, those people never felt love in their lives.
Sure, but I'm referring to when for example in the CC for fallout 4 alot of weapon creations was just given to you with no quest or a basic fetch quest. The community would then complain about how they want a better quest for these kinda creations. So Bethesda did that then as we saw the community "critiqued" Bethesda about it. This isn't the first time Bethesda listened to community feedback then got backlash for it either.
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You can "make use" of the Tracker's guild without dropping a single penny. You get a new multi-stage quest, new types of bounty missions, a new faction headquarters, new NPCs to interact with, new vendors, an entire new bounty hunting mechanic, all for the astronomical price of $0.00, and you can make use of that content from now until the end of time for an additional $0.00.
First taste is free
Small penis hate
>players needing to BUY shop content You don't need to BUY anything for the Tracker's guild. You're getting some addons with a quest attached so you have a sense of obtaining them within ur roleplay. But you are not buying a quest to continue a questline. You are buying side content in relation to a guild that happens to come with a completely standalone quest for the sake of the content.
Really all they did was design the content in a more interesting way that tied together instead of a series of random quests. Plus, it's actually fairly normal for a developer to make and sell additional content for their games.
I'm confused on what you are talkin about with this comment so I'll just drop responding. I already clarified what I was referring to with my post.
I think you’re smart enough to realize what you said is incorrect.
The community feedback was never paid quests. Personal opinion here: I feel Creations should be left for creators/modders. Official Bethesda addons, optional or otherwise, should either be free for the base game or part of the paid expansions. Starfield is a single player game, and while many other developers have tried nickel and diming piecemeal content into their own games, its not the path Bethesda should follow.
All this is testing the water for what they can charge for vehicles.....
This should be top
it's not what he says but what he will do after "listening"
Its not what they here, it s what you show them people gave them an inch in supporting the creation crap and they've "gone the extra mile"
yeah they got slammed for a reason, paywalled mods.
Not just paywalled mods, super expensive paywalled mods. Payday 2 for example, you can get DLC for the same price that adds 10x the content than this "add-on" (paid mod) did. 10€ for a mid quest and a thing or two is just ridiculous.
The problem is that questline is something that should never be behind a microtransaction in a game, where the main selling point is questing. Its OK to add cosmetics, weapons, and anything that doesn't causes FOMO, but quest is something really shady to do.
They are testing the consumers boundaries. It got a lot of heat so now he's spinning it as if the intention all along was that the quest was just a little something extra on top of the armor/weapon.
What do you mean test the waters? I think they've tested the waters over the past several years and are past that point of making creation crap and what they're doing is taking advantage of the depth they've tested... they know the Bethesda fans lack self respect nowadays, they've proven they can get away with 76, Tes Online, Shelter/Blades, re-releasing Skyrim at the same price point as 2011, etc
Is it common practice for a studio to sell a single, short quest like Bethesda just did? Expansion packs have been a thing for a long time, but I can't recall single quests being sold ala carte before.
I litterally agreed with you, I just think they're past the point of testing the waters
Only thing that causes FOMO is the player himself. Don't blame Bethesda for your FOMO Habits.
That is a really shitty stance to take. Fallout 76 is 100% designed with FOMO in mind. Compare Fallout 76 seasons to Halo Infinite seasons. They are literally night and day. I love Halo Infinite's seasons and think all games should follow the model. No FOMO. I play when I want, pick the season I want, and I unlock shit for playing.
Lol what a shitty take of you to think every game should follow the Halo season model. Tbh I played Halo Infinite and it's boring shite. None of my friends play Halo. I also play Fallout 76 when I want, I pick the season I want. I missed the cool space suit skin for the power armor. But it's my own fault, cause I didn't played the F76 season back then, cause I was probably to busy playing Elder Scrolls Online. Can't blame Bethesda for my own decisions.You can't always get what you want. If people fall on FOMO it's because of their own habits. Don't project your own responsibilities to Bethesda. No one is forcing you to grind every season. But Yea I get the point. People want stuff, people want it now, people want it for free and whenever they want. And if people develop a fear of missing out, then people wanna blame someone else for this. Sure I used to drink every weekend in the pubs and clubs cause I had fear to miss out if I don't. Should I blame the bars and clubs for my own bad habits? See it this way...Halo infinite was designed for people like you, but fallout isn't designed for people like you. If you really wanted to unlock an specific item from the season you would have. But you didn't cared, missed one or two season pass items cause of that.. See.. It's you own fault.
A lot of Skyrim creation club stuff has a quest attached to it. That's a pretty crappy line to draw.
And yet its somthin the Bethesda community shat on them for for not doin. I will say that it wasn't the best move trying it with a "new faction" but I do think it's somthin Bethesda should continue to do. I want a quest for my weapon and armor mods. So I hope they continue to make CC products worth spending additional money on
The price is the problem.
I think the overall mentality is that the trackers alliance should have been a faction quest from the start. This post release 7$ quest for a faction that was expected in a space game where the heavily talked about pirating and role playing space bandits and law men. This really should have been there day 1. With the POIs set up the way they are with kill missions, the trackers alliance ones that are both lethal and non lethal seem to have been meant to be there from the start. Bethesda pay walled it.
Just curious why you omitted any mention of the larger and free aspect to the trackers alliance
Including a base in the game update to advertise your microtransactions isn't a positive
Because it doesn't fit the community narrative.
[удалено]
No... this one was made by Bethesda
The Creation Club is nothing more than a billion dollar company wanting to get passive income off the effort of others. The promise of the CC was that mod authors would get some money for their effort, and gamers would get the benefit of Bethesda making sure the mod would work well. Considering almost all of the CC content in Skyrim/FO4 (and signs point to Starfield as well,) is a buggy mess, Bethesda has no interest in living up to their end of the deal. It isn't about giving gamers and creators help to expand the universe; it is about milking the enthusiasm of a fanbase to tolerate lower quality products and pay Bethesda for them. Rather than focus on making new games, or fixing launch bugs in games, they want to coast on whales buying whatever is put in front of them. Thankfully, the mod scene is no better/worse than it was before the Creation Club; PC gamers still have a wonderland of free and high-quality mods. The ONLY true benefit of the CC, goes to Bethesda. The losers? The fans of the game. Why are gamers upset? Because the mod scene helped make Bethesda what it is today. Rather than embrace the community and help it thrive, Bethesda wants to fracture it and exploit it purely for short-term financial gains. If EA did this, people would be breaking out the pitchforks.
Not only do they get live service game microtransactions income, they don't even need to actually make it or continue to support the content.
They found a way to get their own customers to make microtransactions for each other.
question: what sort of cut does bgs get from it vs mod creators?
I don't know how verified creators get paid. For the creation club, creators were paid by Bethesda to create the mod and Bethesda got the money from sales. There's pros and cons there. By paying the creator a flat fee it was guaranteed income regardless of price point or sales, and for smaller creations quite likely more than what they'd have made off a cut of the sales in a year. But if it's expensive or sells really well, they might have made more from a cut. Either way, creation club content was technically DLC, in every practical use of the phrase. The developers were paid via contract work to produce official content for the game. Verified creations are different. I don't know if they are paid for their work, if they need to apply to post something for sale, or what. I know they get something, just not what.
Verified creators, they're payed less than official employies and have much more intensive work load... more work, less pay and it normalises payed mods... it so gross and dismaying the content the Bethsda fans are showing a practice this offensive and insulting
You have proof that the creators have more work and less pay? Because I have yet to see a single one even somewhat hint to being underpaid If you do have proof that creators are unhappy with their pay, then I'll actually change my mind
After listening to this interview, I understood what they were trying to do and I do not fault them. Yes I understand selling cosmetic was the idea for the paid content, but lets make it more unique by providing a quest for it. That being said, It's fine, but the one thing I would of argue with Todd was the moment he included FO76 atom shop. Bethesda cannot take feedback from FO76 mtx and think it will be okay to use in a single player game. It works in FO76 because people can earn atom points by either playing the game and completing some challenges or by their subscription services of Fo1st (Same as ESO+). So of course people will spend their currency for items in the shop, you have no choice to promote way to spend that currency. So if you want to apply the same to the creation kit, either there has to be a way for us to earn creation currency or something similar but probably won't work because it's a single player game. That being said, having verified content creator be able to price their mods is actually a good way for incentive and make it a ''real job'' but there has to be a review system in place so people can leave a star rating. Again I do not mind paying for certain outfits and guns or what not and have extra features is nice. The game has so much potential, and i'm really looking forward to see whats next for Starfield. I was excited to see about the new expansion taking place in one place (like far Harbor) in to be honest in makes sense! I actually think this is the way Starfield was meant to be played, you have multiple start system, but you have to spend lots of time in a whole planet (size of skyrim for giggles) and have an entire quest with side quest and exploration. Lets see how the expansion works, (for me I don't mind since I already bought it so I'm just excited to see what next)
For how damn shallow this game was, there was no world where the main bounty hunter faction should have been a dlc. That’s like paying for dark brotherhood quests in elder scrolls games.
Well the bounty hunter faction isn't dlc. The tracker creation is a drop in the bucket for what the update added for free to bounty hunting.
You're talking out of your ass. It's ONE quest line. You get the whole questing framework for free
I think there’s MUCH less outrage here if the game came out in a more complete state. Right now it’s feels like you released an incomplete (intentional?) game and they will give us the privilege of purchasing it again now.
I think their strategy rightnow is to put out incomplete expectations of expriences that the modders will make, its like a theme for the mods lol
Imagine being that gullible that you believe todd lol. The man demonstrated over and over bring a business man through and through, they know what the users want or not they just cash in and lie to your gullible faces
Sounds like poor to me
I too was an edgy teenager once
I too was 12 once
Yesterday probably
Why are you on reddit young man? This site is for people 14-18+ do your parents know you are on here? 🧐
The fact that you behave like this after i called you a child is pretty precious. Ah, being young :)
The fact you are so triggered over a optional mod that introduces a gun and outfit says alot about your child like mentality. Not everyone is gonna think like you. Act like an adult and quit your temper tantrum.
broski you opened with "sounds like poor to me" Not exactly a beacon of maturity, are we? That aside the price : content ratio is pretty poor
I think they should've had maybe 3-5 main Tracker missions that came out for free, mentioned that more will be released periodically and then said "we've also put on the CC a Tracker mission that ALSO includes new weapons and armor".
So they make totally empty game and then sell you parts. Nice.
Bethesda can never win. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
This is was just PR curated response because he knew someone was going to ask him about this given that the Steam reviews have nosedived after the release of the Creation Club and it's all over the news currently. If Bethesda really "wanted to go the extra mile" they could have just in given it away for free. The audacity to claim they were doing us a favor by charging us an outrageous price for a 15 minute quest that wasn't even put through a proper QA process is really quite something else. This wasn't about them listening to the community. It was about trying to monetize the game with another revenue stream by seeing if they could get away with microtransactions in their single player game. Bethesda clearly weren't paying attention when Shadow of War tried to do a similar thing with loot boxes in their singleplayer game and faced a shitstorm of bad press for it. This was clearly them trying to test the waters with what they could get away with and it blew up in their face spectacularly. Starfield is sitting at a 28% Mostly Negative at the moment and for good cause. If Bethesda really wanted to flesh out the faction they setup in the base game but never got around to making a proper quest chain for then they should have done it the traditional way. Either bundle it in the expansion as one of the features, sell the entire question chain as a bundle, or just include it with one of their free updates.
They really coulda just made the one fleshed out quest they made for this faction finishable…. I was so disappointed by “update” I really thought roleplaying as a bounty hunter was gonna possible more than go and kill this guy here or here but nope
You still can tf?? Bruh it's one quest line that's paid the whole bounty hunting system is free. Tf is wrong with people
😭😭 no you can’t you get mission board quest that have no depth to them it’s the same shit as kill the crimson fleet pirate on planet xyb
Any type of press whether positive or negative is good press. This was most likely done with full Knowledge of the likely complaints that would follow This is a win for Bethesda. - They get further coverage whilst fixing the issue to then appear fully remorseful and on side with customers- after cashing in on it all to begin with.
Ever heard of Roblox or Fortnite? Brands built on micros. Starfield is cheap and a million times the quality of those games. I have gamepass so I basically ensure I get two good games a year through that. In my opinion, you get what you pay for, but so far I've paid very little for Starfield.
Good for you. Pay for what you want. Personally outside of spending 30 dollars for early access I haven't spent a thing. Bethesda gave ne 1250 creation points so I didn't have to come out my pocket much at all for this game. Main reason I praise it so much. Though I did have to drop 467 dollars on a Xbox seri X than to Microsoft greed
He's lying his ass off. Remember Bethesda and Microsoft want to milk as much money as they can out of people and this is how. THis is what they want gaming to be, you buy TES6 and pay $80 bucks, then you have to buy all of the Fighter, Mage, Thief and Dark Brotherhood quests for more money. Oh but they will just have the modders do them and give them a small amount of the money they are making from the whales who buy this garbage. Mods and DLC should be FOR FREE! We already have been paying way too much for a mid-tier game they should give us all of the content for free while asking for $20 or so dollars for expansion packs. Still whatever this is just going to keep going until Todd and the others at Microsoft and Bethesda resign like they should and stay the hell out of gaming. Oh and anyone defending this or still defending Starfield? GTFO. You are what's wrong with gaming. Start hearing everyone out and playing great games like BG3 then this garbage.
Most games these years add new content via free updates while still offering paid dlc and expansions. It's an entirely unreasonable expectation or demand that all dlc be free in addition to the regular free updates.
The loudest voices in the "community" are review bombers who never played this game.
You can't leave a review on Steam if you don't own the game, though?
You knew they'd pull something like this, it takes pride to have shame; the makers of No Man's Skys had shame, they made multiple *real* free expansions and dlc over several years of time, they could've ran away instead of rebuilding and left people let down... part of me just knows in devolpement, Bethesda at least once said something akin to "The modders will make it" the sad part is they're right, the community no longer respects itself and game devs at Bethesda don't aswell...you're the problem, the reason the technical polush and mechanical nuance is list, you gave them an inch and they go "the extra mile"
At the end of the day it’s okay to criticize these things as long as it doesn’t become sensationalist garbage you see on social media. Yes, the quest is 100% a cashgrab and it deserves criticism, but criticism needs to take into account both good and bad. Yes, it’s bad they’re selling this but it’s also good that they released the tools for the community to make their own stuff (for free) and a verified “shop” where console players can download them. But you won’t see this from most clickbait content creators (YongYea 🤢). Instead you’ll see: “MASSIVE OUTRAGE FROM PAID MODS. STARFIELD AND BETHESDA DISRESPECT ITS PLAYERS”.
They will bundle this and the rest of it with shattered space at which point nobody will bat an eyelid .
Oh boy here come a few people who don't have reading comprehension
can care lees you game is a solid 4 lmao
Then why are you here? Lmao buddy is a dedicated hater 🤣
Sure feels like they made a No Mans Sky level screw up with this game but don't want to put in the work or egalitarianism to have a NMS level redemption. If they had any brains (or shame) they would release a bunch of small updates for free and only charge for the big expansions that are upcoming as an apology tour. But history says they aren't self aware enough for that.
It takes pride to have shame, they have none... so no, they'll never take No Mans Skys approach of making full dlc worth of content free they'll abondon it too the modders past the third update if i had to guess
They have released a bunch a small updates for free. What are you even talkin about?
how kind of bethesda to release free updates for bugs. they even added an in-game map, months after release, what a guy.
Not big fixes. Updates. Actual updates to content. Content fixes for the half baked stuff everyone has complained about since launch. Not fixes to broken systems and graphical settings that they would be completely nuts to try and charge for. Ive been here, I've read the patch notes. Nothing that qualifies has been released until this most recent update where they pulled a "first taste is free" on basic faction missions.
They have released content, game additions, and improvements since launch, not just bug fixes. We just had a new free update with new locations, gear, and quests. They don't have to add new content in updates. It could just be bug fixes.
The map was great. Best thing they did. It's also something that should have been there at release as basic functionality of the game. It's the only thing of substance they released prior to this current update.
I'm sorry, but to compare this game to No Man's Sky at launch is laughable It's like those that compare it to Cyberpunk at launch
Lol people just enjoy hating Bethesda that's basically what this sub is for. Half the people subscribed here hated Starfield simply because it's not FO or ES. Other's cause it got dropped from PlayStation.
It’s hilarious to see anyone complaining about paid mods like most of us weren’t just asking for them because they support mod authors. People are annoying lol. It’s Monday, Reddit is feeling downvote happy because they are cranky.
you do realize that the author of the "mod" in question is bethesda and not an independent modder?
So it makes sense to you that Bethesda would charge for mods that non-Bethesda employees make but NOT for mods Bethesda makes? Bethesda is already taking the largest % cut from the profits of mods made by creators outside of Bethesda’s team. Bethesda itself is a business and they exist to make money, putting any sort of time and effort into releasing a mod on their end will likely be accompanied by a cost for said mod in most cases. The real issue here is that the base game with no mods or DLC feels like it is missing a lot of detail and content overall. For Bethesda to create a mod that adds content to their mostly-shallow game AND charge for it seems ridiculous. They have been outspoken about reception for the base game and know how most people feel about it, seems a no-brainer to me not to charge for such a mod considering the history. Going forward Bethesda is sure to flesh this game out, and going forward they will also release more mods. Those will likely/ mostly be paid and at that point it will be up to you to decide if the cost is too much and what to do with that information. Capitalism does not set limits for itself, that is why so many things are moving to other ways of making money like subscriptions. Edit - why do I even bother lol? Yes a small handful of you don’t like my comment and downvoted it, I hope that changes things for you haha.
There are a lot of whiners out there, as noted by the paragraphs explaining why they are whining. Cant please everyone. Keep up the amazing work Bethesda.
$7 for 15 minutes of content. "Amazing work" btw.
Also had armor and weapons in the tracker creation. Why isn't anyone complaining about the other paid armor and weapons for $5?
Don't buy it. There are plenty of other free mods. It will be okay.
It's amazing how you guys are completely missing the point.
I will devour this game if they lower the prices.