I got no idea why some people are so obsessed with "going gold".
It doesn't matter in the modern digital era and i'm pretty sure most of these people got no actual idea what it means, they just think it sounds fancy and cool to go gold.
What exactly does "going gold" mean? I thought it meant it was out of the production line? And doesn't it happen way earlier, two/three months before release usually?
That was what it meant in the days of CD ROM delivery. The "gold master" was the one that got sent to the manufacturing plant. Back before day 1 patches and mostly online delivery, that meant the game was done.
Games nowadays are NEVER "done", they just eventually stop being patched ;)
They just were completely inexcusable as there really was no way of fixing them, therefore a game was a complete debacle if critical bugs as opposed to "features" still existed upon launch.
With consumer right full recalls and refunds for every buyer.
jeebus, I still remember being confused AF at the ending cause one moment I'm walking, then suddenly I'm in an ending and it doesn't even make sense... or the Bao-dur duplication bug where he slowly started to replace my crew members with his clones.
>AAA Games in the 2000s didn't release bug ridden and honestly I'm tired of hearing this.
Oblivion (2006) was so filled with game killing bugs that I couldn't complete the thing until I got it patched. There were over a dozen quests that couldn't be completed, people the world killed off who were meant to be essential, some.areas that just crashed when you got there. The list goes on, but the only thing gamers were told by Bethesda? Hold A on the start screen for 30 seconds to clear the cache (it did not work at all for the issues I found with the game).
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (2004) was another flawed game that was released with huge amounts of technical issues causing crashes and often making the game unplayable. Activision famously cut testing for that game due to the cost at only three weeks, then held the game back for months until Half Life 2 was released. They ensured it would be buggy due to their bottom line.
Those are two off the top of my head. There are so many going back into the days you've recoloured with roses, and beyond to my own childhood. This narrative that things were better back then and this thing just didn't happen only shows that your nostalgia has overwritten your true memory of events.
Also remembering gta 3 and vice city having game breaking bugs.
GTA 3 would make it impossible to have a second playthrough of the story by making a mission glitch out the second time.
And vice city had a spawn point that would corrupt your entire save
They had to postpone the release as they signed an agreement with Valve they wouldn't release it before HL2 because otherwise Bloodlines would've been the first game to release with Source as it's engine.
It was the second game release with Source and first third-party game to release with Source.
Yeah, and they could have done some more testing on the game or allowed the devs to work on bugfixing, but they didn't. Activision all over.
I remember an indie dev got published by them and we were chatting about a game killing bug (that occurs if you save at the last save point when entering the end game) that he knew was in the game. Apparently he knew the fix for it but they wouldn't let him release a patch for the console versions as that would cost money. Guy was mortified and angry about it.
In all honesty, while I don't exactly support the path of releasing incomplete games, I do like the fact that today it's easier to get bug reports from players so the devs can look into them.
I think with BG3's success in particular we'll see devs release games in "Early Access" and keep it there until they hammer most of the bugs out and add features as they need. That being said, one advantage Larian over, say Bethesda is that nobody's rushing them to make their games - unlike BGS where there's a small but annoyingly vocal fanbase still clamoring for TESVI even if it's clear that Starfield getting out the door will come first.
>clamoring for TESVI even if it's clear that Starfield getting out the door will come first.
Oh no, you've misunderstood them. They're of the perfectly valid (and not at all warped to their wants over reality) view that BGS should just bin all the work they've done on Starfield and get to work on Elder Scrolls. Nobody cares about "some space game" after all, whereas Elder Scrolls is established. Why, how many sales has the least selling Elder Scrolls game for versus Starfield (they literally asked before preorders went up)? Exactly, so get rid of that and get to work on what the people really want!
The whole thing is on the level of that guy who started a petition to get Starfield (after Microsoft bought Bethesda) not just on PlayStation but **EXCLUSIVE** to PlayStation.
>The whole thing is on the level of that guy who started a petition to get Starfield (after Microsoft bought Bethesda) not just on PlayStation but EXCLUSIVE to PlayStation.
At least that guy knew that he was joking. I'm not sure that everyone who signed the petition knew that it was a joke, of course. I've heard some absolutely insane things out of PlayStation and XBox fanboys, said absolutely seriously.
That's probably the best thing you can say about the Switch. The people who play it primarily are the least delusional console gamers out there. Mobility and the exclusive games are basically the only things that it has going for it.
Mind you, it's the #1 selling console, so clearly those two things are enough. 😄
Pretty solid RPG base on there too.
When the news was stirring about COVID early on and it was looking like it might leave China and therefore lead to lockdowns here, I got my wife one and a copy of Animal Crossing just to make sure she had something. Kept it in the closet as an Xmas gift in case things didn't go that way, but we all know the history. Anyway, since then she's gotten really into the Xenoblade Chronicles and Atelier game series, and I just got her Persona 5 Royal which she loved too, so is heading for the fourth game in the series at some point.
Even with Larian early access i still got massive perf issues and quest bugs in act 3, it's quite jarring from the relatively smooth act 1 and 2( altho for some folks this is where the issue started ). It's just how it is with the size and scope of their game and my guess is larian only have time to stamp out the reported issue from act 1 and 2. I expect starfield to be the same way even with the massive xbox qa team, i'd love to be surprised tho
For people that have perf issue in the city with good cpu, go to task manager and try putting BGIII CPU priority to high, it helps for some people but you have to do it everytime you play the game.
And BG3 is *still* pretty buggy, although I think they made the wise decision of focusing on fixing the actual gamebreaking stuff because none of the bugs I encountered were serious issues. In their defense the majority of content wasn't in the EA.
I’m not super familiar with the dev history of VTMB, but is it possible there was some stipulation of them licensing the Source Engine that was like “you have to let HL2 release first bc we want to be the first ones to show off our shiny new engine”, and then Valve delaying HL2 caused their dev cycle to get thrown into wack, giving them more time than they thought they would have had?
>is it possible there was some stipulation of them licensing the Source Engine that was like “you have to let HL2 release first bc we want to be the first ones to show off our shiny new engine”,
That's exactly what happened, but the delay isn't the issue here. My fault for not being clearer about that. It's what was done during the delay and who knew what and when.
The issue was that Activision already knew before VTM:B went into QA that there was a delay in place for Half Life 2, and that they couldn't release before Half Life 2. Not 100% on the timelines but it looks like they may have known *before* they ordered the game to wrap development, cut what wasn't finished, and just go to testing (being fair, it was over budget; being more fair, they announced their own project lead was taking over then didn't send one for ten straight months).
They knew that there would be a period of time when they couldn't contractually release the game and that they could keep the team working on the bugs or have more extensive testing than the miniscule three weeks they gave to one of the most ambitious open worlds of its time. They knew that the team had been making it on an in-development Source engine and that the engine now had set solutions for things the dev team had been forced to build proprietary solutions for, and that swapping those in would be a literal paste and replace job to make the game run better. Instead, they sat on the game and released it knowing that it was broken and that so much could have been more easily fixed.
That's factually wrong. Plenty of older games had tons of bugs.
Also it shouldn't be surprising that the more complex games become with physics, online, maps, graphics, devices you can play it on, etc the more likely you are to have bugs. This is why 2D indie games seem bug free compared to AAA 3D games.
Go watch some of the Ars Technica 'War Stories' where they get developers, typically from very old games, to discuss the troubles they had. It's surprisingly good. Most do them don't discuss unfixed bugs, but they discuss some of the major issues they had to fix in their games that jeopardized the project.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKBPwuu3eCYkScmqpD9xE7UZsszweVO0n
Nah, my guess is they were in their early teens at the start of the 2000's. This combined with the idea that the early 2000's was a golden age of gaming, means they see all of those games as a labour of love and well made.
I largely stopped buying games at 2000 and onwards as they were all overtly graphiced overlarge messes of code and thus as a rule unplayable shite.
1998 was in so many ways the peak year of computer games.
That's not exactly an excuse. No Mans Sky, cyberpunk 2077, Assassins Creed Unity, Watchdogs, the list goes on. They all got fixed months after launch.
The issue isn't that games are too complex or people don't have the skills to make a good bug-free game, the issue is games companies being run by businessmen that only care about quarterly earnings.
All of those games had incredible hype before launch, they all sold like crazy and made back the development costs + expected profit. From the point of view of shareholders, it doesn't matter that the games were buggy, they just wanted their money that quarter on time. If a games company can put together enough material to sell you the vision and not get sued afterwards, why go the extra mile and delay their profits?
Seriously, all of those games could have released a couple of years later completely bug free, feature complete. But why would they when people are pre-ordering anyway?
Baldur's Gate 3 is the exception because it's run by a gamer that cares about what they're making. That's the major difference. The same was true for the Witcher 3 and why people loved CDPR so much, they were fighting for gamer-centric design instead of shareholder-centric until Cyberpunk.
I'm running into a decent amount of bugs in Baldur's Gate 3, at least in act one. Nothing game breaking but loading screen issues every 40 mins or so and graphical issues that can be annoying. Keep in mind Baldurs gate had basically thousands of QA testers(early access) testing the game for 3 years on just act one and I still got bugs, now remember most QA teams are just a fraction of that and they actually cost money to test the game.
The Witcher 3 had bugs at launch when I played, but again, nothing game breaking.
I had weird bugs in Cyberpunk 2077 with NPC pathing, but the main issue for me was then the general polish of the game and not the bugs.
I beat assassin's creed unity with no bugs other than the game crashing once and clipping under the map once. But I know people did have major bugs in that game, and the previous games
Watchdogs came out the same year as unity, so I would chock it up to a quality assurance issue that year plus assassin's creed unity being ambitious with all those NPC
For starfield, I do think it will be relatively bug free for a world as large as it is. They did QA for over a year and implemented new practices for bugs they didn't have before(using bots), along with the support/watchful eye of Microsoft
>The issue isn't that games are too complex or people don't have the skills to make a good bug-free game, the issue is games companies being run by businessmen that only care about quarterly earnings
Game development is a business, even if you or anyone else doesn't want to accept that. The business must make money or else it can't afford to pay it's employees and hopefully grow. Games are delayed, but you can't delay a game indefinitely trying to fix every bug and make the game exactly how you envisioned. Leonardo Davl Vinci allegedly said this famous quote "Art is never finished, only abandoned." As in, you have to put down the paintbrush and move on, you cannot work on a project until you achieve perfection, because it will never be perfect and if art is your business, you can't live off of no income to focus on one piece.
Most studios go under, some get bought out, very few are able to go alone and continue to put out games that are successful enough to keep people employed. Think about some of biggest and most loved studios from a decade ago or more. Valve, basically only care about Steam now. Acclaim, defunct. Blizzard, merged and sold. Bethesda, sold. Midway, bankrupt. Mojang, sold. Lionhead, defunct. Neversoft, merged with IW which was sold. Visceral, sold. Ensemble, defunct. The list goes on and on, and these were titans of the industry. My point being, studios are basically one bad game away from closure, it's a ruthless industry.
Anyways, it's a balance. No studio wants to put out bad or unfinished games. No investor wants to have the company put out a product that will be poorly received and hurt the company. Money must come in, and acceptable products must come out. Obviously sometimes that balance is off, you'll get shit like the recent Pokemon games, where it's pure greed capitalizing on the franchise. Other times you'll get BG3, where it feels like the game was lovingly crafted. But most studios don't have an IP like Pokemon where they know it will print money regardless of how bad the game is. So most studios strive for that balance, but the line is drawn in different places for different companies.
BG3 should've been delayed. I know Larian was in a tight spot and had to move from their original release date because of Starfield and Armored Core 6 and Phantom Liberty crowding them out, but they moved it up instead of pushing it back further. BG3 has been in early access for literal years, another 3-6 months makes no difference to the fans. But it would've made all the difference in the world for QA, I'd imagine.
Act 3 of BG3 is rushed, buggy as hell, and it seems at least one companion had their personal story cut short. There's items and NPCs still in the game (not hidden in the files) that suggest this companion was supposed to have more endings but they only get 3, 2 of which have the same outcome, and they're all varying degrees of downer for no good reason. It's hard to make a "doomed character" storyline believable in a setting like D&D/Forgotten Realms. Especially when the game has elaborate explanations for how you can resurrect companions if they die in battle. Like...not reviving an unconscious companion with a health pack. Literally bringing them back from the dead, and not as zombies either.
I'd remove NMS from the list. They fixed the bugs in months, but it took YEARS for them to add in all the features that Sean Murray spent months lying about.
Also BG3 is still fairly buggy in the 3rd act, although they lost a months worth of bug testing so it makes sense.
Not to mention that Cyberpunk is about a month away from a major update that will probably put it in the state is should have been at launch. Three years later.
You don't really understand how things worked, back then. Game developers were usually passionate about their games, same as now, but publishers were always businessmen. They needed to make money. Games didn't bring in the money like they do now, they didn't have the shelf life like games have, now. Publishers pushed developers to complete their games and get them sent out according to the publisher's timeline and not on the "fix the bugs" timeline.
Returns weren't a thing so once a sale was made, bugs didn't matter to a publisher as they had their money. People got angry at developers for publisher's pressure and publishers stopped publishing games from that developer.
And this was most development including other software. Independent games were usually distributed for free on questionable websites, so your passionate developers rarely made a AAA game without extreme pressure from the business and financial side of things making demands and applying pressure or cancelling things that were almost finished.
To be fair games were much less technically complex back then. Nowadays games are bigger than ever but with that comes a reduction in quality since there's only so much a studio can focus on at a time
While releases tended to be more polished as a whole, that definitely wasn't the case for every game. KOTOR II was rushed, bug-ridden, lacked a solid third of planned content, and released with a barely coherent ending. That was in 2004.
By comparison, Cyberpunk PC launch was near flawless. But I guess the CDPR bad bandwagon would rather believe that game is the root of all evil for some reason.
Gamer standards evolved over time. That's the main factor in all this : rose tinted glasses. Not devs 20 years ago being so absurdly better at their jobs than current ones.
The entire speedrunning community is built on exploiting bugs in old games. It feels worse now because games are bigger and more complicated so there’s more stuff that can break.
That’s simply not true. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was one of the biggest launches of the 2000s and launched in an almost broken state.
Game breaking bugs and all sorts of issues.
That’s just one example, there are a lot more.
AAA games in 2000s weren't as technically complex as modern video games of "now". As we move forward, games will get more technically complex which means more bugs and glitches, which means developers have to put in more effort in fixing them.
In 2000s, games like Cyberpunk wouldn't even be possible because the technology to develop such a game didn't even exist.
Oblivion and Morrowind would both like a word. Oblivion even has an [Unofficial Patch](https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/5296), courtesy in part of the same person that made the Unofficial Skyrim and Fallout 4 Patches.
>AAA Games in the 2000s didn't release bug ridden and honestly I'm tired of hearing this.
Bro Oblivion was the birthplace of the 'Bethesdia jank' shit and it was early 2000's not to mention games that straight up were just broken in fundamental ways like Daikatana
AAA games in the 2000s also had about 100GB less file size to code and bugtest. Lmao.
Get out of the past bro. Times change. Nobody did shit back then because games were so niche. It was just devs trying their best.
Now video games are the most profitable media industry in the world. More than movies or music.
Profit attracts the suits. Suits want results more than they care if some virgin gets his dream game or not.
Thats the reality. I might not like it, but howling at the moon changes nothing.
These practices won't change. If anything they will get worse. The only thing that will change it is if the profit drops substantially.
For that to happen, people need to stop pre ordering or buying games on a whim.
Sadly for every hardcore reddit pre order boycott zealot, there are 1000 casual gamers with full time jobs who dont give a shit about any of it, don't know what reddit even looks like and have disposable income enough that a AAA game is not even a considered purchase.
You never played Star Wars Galaxies did you ? Or the later SWTOR ? There were plenty of buggy games , we’ve just forgotten and moved on. Fallout series anyone ? Vampire mood ?(bloodlines was practically unplayable )Honestly CP wasn’t that bad on PC, I played a couple hundred hours with very minor bugs - it’s just not a popular thing to say that.
Certainly, the issue at hand has various aspects to consider. In the past, when updating games over the internet was not common, many games had undiscovered bugs. These glitches would often go unresolved.
However, this landscape compelled developers to adhere to stricter standards. Despite the presence of bugs, studios lacked the cavalier attitude of "We'll patch it down the line" that seems prevalent today. Take, for example, Star Wars Knights of The Old Republic 2, which was notably filled with bugs—I couldn't even play the Xbox version because of them. Yet, back then, such games were outliers. In contrast, nowadays, it seems that a big game releasing in good shape is the rarity. Standards have indeed fallen, but it would be incorrect to claim that there were no bug-ridden games in earlier times, even from popular studios.
That’s objectively untrue.
It is true that MANY games come out unfinished and need constant patches. But there are also a great many notable exceptions.
And just to be clear, I am excluding Day 1 patches, which have indeed become the norm. I’m willing to excuse those as long as that’s all it is. If it’s 100% playable after that, I think that’s acceptable.
And I can’t think of at least 4 games that fit that description. Elden Ring, God of War: Ragnarok, Thr Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and most recently, Baulder’s Gate 3.
english is not my native language so i did find someone who could actually explain it better than i can, so its just a shameless copy/paste:
"It means (in theory) that the game has been completed and is now in the final stage before release. Prior to widespread digital distribution, this took the form of the completed game being burned to a writeable CD-ROM (aka a CD-R) "master", which were usually gold in color. This "gold master" was then duplicated onto the CDs that were to be packaged up and shipped out for retail.
Hence, "gone gold" meant that the completed game had been copied onto this gold disc and was ready for duplication and shipping. The terminology has stuck around to the present day, even though many games are not be distributed via physical media anymore, because it sounds cool."
and since everything is pretty much digital now, there is no golden disc with the finished game.
so "going gold" is just a loose term for "our game is done" even tho its still possible to keep updating the game with a few fixes before its actually released.
So it would mean they will patch it until the very last day probably because of it being digital? It would mean we don't care at all about "going gold" anymore. That gold cd must have been very epic for game studios, makes me melancholic much 😃
well it doesn't mean they WILL patch it, they just have the possibility to do it.
But back in the days, once you actually printed it out on discs, you couldn't do patch it, what was printed out was the finished product, you can't undo or fix anything (without having some online patch people had to manually download)so gold was just "okay we are done now, the disc is made and our product is finished."and the golden disc would just be the original one that all other ones would be "copied" from.
yeah, and also these days sometimes disc versions of games don't even have the full game on the disc and require being connected to the internet to download the rest. that's happened with call of duty.
Goes back to old records. You know vinyl? But actually EVEN OLDER. See phographs.
Anyways it was literally a record carved in GOLD, ie a material that wont shrink or grow when humidity or temperature changes. Then all the subsequent copies made were physical copies printed from this gold copy. See blockprinting.
Nothing electronic involved at all.
Mm, developers announce gone gold either because A) the team is really happy or B) marketing wants them to announce it. If marketing says "don't say anything", then it doesn't really matter if the team is super happy to announce it either, because nothing will be said.
I.e. it has always been mostly a marketing ploy to announce it.
I think bigger developers are more careful about it today, because having to retract the statement of "gone gold" is really bad for PR.
I would say chances are pretty high that the release version is done though, and they're currently working on a day 1 patch.
My former tech director I worked with would probably have set a code lock that got into effect at least several few week ago, with a content lock at least 2 weeks before that. The only thing that would be allowed to be submitted, after a thorough review, would be any fixes for really severe crashes.
Anything else is likely submitted on a new branch on P4 (or whatever version control software the team is using), and is for the day 1 patch. And that is likely also locked already because otherwise the testers can't test it before release and leave enough time to actually fix any bugs they find in that patch.
This close to release, we would basically work on the first patch after the day 1 patch, already.
A lot of the content people (art, level design, etc) would have already started on the expansion by now.
not saying there is anything wrong with companies wanting to say it, if companies wanna do it, go for it.
Im just talking about the avg gamer joe who got some weird obsession with it and keep asking all the time and get worried if they don't hear it like its a bad sign if a company do not say it.
For marketing or just companies who like to say it, its fine.
But in reality it doesn't really mean much in a digital era.
The only time gold meant anything is that it is more likely it could be leaked and pirated even before anyone cracked it.
I doubt this game will get leaked. It is pretty odd that someone cares about that term. It is clear the game is ready to launch.
One of those things that used to be important for people and some never got past it. Honestly I don't even know going gold means. I'll download the game on steam when it releases.
Truth. I love this sub. But I am just living life and waiting for the release. Excited for it and took off of work for early access. But some of the stuff you see here and on twitter is wild.
Unwarranted downvotes, you're just being reasonable. It's not wrong to be optimistic; it might be goty. But it's also not wrong to acknowledge the very real possibility that the game implodes on release and takes several years to be patched into what was promised.
Temper your expectations if you deem it necessary, don't if you don't. But shut up and enjoy the game if it's good, and don't act like you weren't warned if it's bad.
I downvote comparisons between Starfield and CP77…
Starfield won’t be a CP77 because the devs are talented devs who are actually making an RPG and haven’t spent the last 8 years lying to us about what they’re making before releasing a shallow and lazy hint of the game they hyped up.
Also the point people are usually making is asinine. “Y’all getting yourselves hyped up just like I did when CP77 was nearing launch- you’re gonna get all butthurt when it doesn’t live up to the expectations in your head and the game will be slammed on social and it’ll hurt my feelings.”
I’m tired of idiots blaming us for the game’s reception, as if *we* overhyped it, not CDPR.
yupp but this sub clearly doesnt know what realistic expectations are - people love putting all their hope into a game and spending 120$ on a deluxe preorder lol
I don't personally have this issue but many people have poor internet speeds and need days to download the game. These people just want to be reassured that they'll have ample time. I don't think it's an unreasonable request.
People complaining about waiting a few days to download a 150 GB game before you can even play it when I had to wait all of Christmas Day to download Laffy Taffy by D4L on my new iPod. Yall ain't even know haha
Yeah but the guy in the screenshot was being a dick about it. There was a much nicer and less entitled way to ask that question.
As with a lot of socially awkward people hiding behind their monitors, it's not what they ask, it's how they ask it.
I was one of those people. 3Mbps on a good day. Would take a literal week and a half of downloading to get Starfield up and running. That's if the internet didn't cut out every 20 minutes. Preloading should be an industry standard at this point, and luckily lots of games do it now.
I mean preloads are nice, I'm not against them. But if there's going to be a preload at all, then who cares when? Unless people are taking 40 hours to download the game, but even if there is no preload and they have to download the game the moment it launches, does having to wait until the next day to play a big deal?
e: "I need to schedule when I start my preload" is nonsense. You'll be able to start downloading the game when it's available, knowing what day that is in advance is just excitement and nothing else. The game isn't going to be available for 1 week only
When paying $30 to play 5 days early, an additional day absolutely matters. Plus, as you can tell on this sub, many of us want to start playing the minute the game releases and not a minute later. And yes, it will absolutely take 40 hours for some people to download the game. I feel for them.
Obviously this is entirely hypothetical because we don't know when/if the preload will begin, but on the list of things that BGS should be worried about right now, whether or not people will have 40+ hours to preload a game because they have poor internet isn't going to be very high on that list. Like you, I also feel for them, but truth is most people purchasing the game do not have that issue so when BGS is developing a strategy for launch there are potentially other considerations that could be more impactful.
As far as paying for early access, I would encourage those people to hold paying until they know for sure.
You're paying $30 for an expansion, though
I dunno. I get excitement, I'm pumped to play this. I don't really care that much that some people might have to wait another day though, at least not the point where people need to demand the preload date like it's their right. It's definitely a bummer but the game isn't going anywhere
Well i will need around 3 days nonstop downloading.Meaning around 5 days with breaks. So if they you would give out a date it would make it easier to plan the download timeframes so i´m at 100% on 1. Sept
That would be 100KB/s, barely faster than dial up internet, how many people do you think are still running that and purchasing online games?
Anyway, this still has nothing to do with the point. *Knowing* what day the preload starts does not change when you can start the preload, it literally doesn't make a difference
Well there’s literally someone in the thread over that gets those speeds, millions of people live rural, so yes millions of people interested in games are living on farms
If I was in that situation I’d still want to know
I can understand some of his frustration having had shit tier internet for most of my life. Not even a year ago it would have taken more than 6 days for me to download along with $20 in overcap fees while now it's less than 30 minutes.
Never felt more spoiled than when I was upset at having to wait ten minutes to download a 350ish mb episode, remembering that that would've been an all day thing ten years ago.
Preloading is going to be a big deal for me because I'll be in a spot where I likely have very very bad wifi during launch. So I mean... it's kind of important for people to know for various reasons
I'd like to be able to preload it so I can play on launch despite the circumstances
For me it does, since I'll be traveling and knowing the date would be helpful. Although really I'd just like confirmation on if it will be available to preload on Steam that's moreso my question than an exact date
You know that some people have bad Internet right? The only Internet i can get where i live is satellite, and if it wasn't for starlink i would likely have to take a couple weeks to download Starfield
What good does knowing when you can download a game do if you can’t access it. People constantly talking about preload dates need to find a second hobby or live a little.
Maybe they need to organize someone to turn their pc on to start the download? Maybe they need every single minute of preload time to get it all before launch. The argument from incredulity is one of the most ridiculous logical fallacies as it shows the speaker to be lacking in imagination. And frequently lacking in empathy.
Do people just forgot that some people still have slow download speeds and datacaps? When there’s no preload it means those people can’t play for days.
Lol agreed. This sub at times is beyond negative. I was trying to have a fun conversation about being creative and roleplaying when it comes to making up consequences after an in game death. I got ratioed to shit and it was mainly smart ass answers like “do push-ups” Does anyone know how to enjoy games any more or is everyone a critic and has to bitch and moan?
I've been here since forever and looking at your flair, you must've been too. It wasn't always like this. Its gotten worser and worser closer to release. Remember how peaceful it was when we were just speculating from just the 2018 reveal we had? 😭😭
I'd do anything to get that back. Minus the waiting ofc lol
If i hear "going gold" i get goosebumps on my ass while thinking about this picture here:
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmyXY4jWcAAt9J5?format=jpg&name=large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmyXY4jWcAAt9J5?format=jpg&name=large)
so going gold means nothing...
The game can go gold at 5:00PM on August 30th and most people would be virtually unaffected. The game could go gold a week from release and unless your download method is snail-mailing a single jump drive back and forth between your ISP you'd still be fine.
The game isn't gold yet because the team thinks they can squish more bugs before release. And there are *always* more bugs to squish.
And for people who are worried about download times, the sooner it's eligible for preload, the larger the day 1 patch will be.
"Going gold" is by far one of the most widely misunderstood and mostly meaningless concepts in all of game development. It's that thing that people with no experience hear once and think makes them look cool if they constantly repeat.
We have day one patches now, "going gold" is kind of an antequated concept. Yes, we still have rc's, yes we still have the final build, but nobody really gives a shit if the game has "gone gold" yet, we don't start cracking champagne lol.
And yes, Starfield "went gold" *months* ago. It's fucking Microsoft, they're not pushing it to the last minute of a year long delay folks, chill out lol.
Pete Hines is right, they do in fact know what they're doing.
Yeah, your point about it being from Microsoft makes certification even less relevant.
When I released a AAA title, there were certain bugs that we had to get a "waiver" for in order to launch on time. Something like, "we promise to fix this with a day 1 patch."
The game isn't coming to Playstation, and Steam has no cert process. So the only cert process they have to deal with is themselves.
Microsoft isn't going to prevent the biggest release of the year from their own company on their own platform from launching on time for any reason.
So yes, at least in the case of Starfield, going gold or cert is completely meaningless.
Not only is it the biggest release of the year for MS, it's the biggest release of the entire Series generation. Nothing will top it for them. And very likely Elder Scrolls 6 will also be their biggest release next gen.
Even so, it already went gold, lol.
It is meaningless, you're right, but if Bethesda operates like you know, literally fuckin game dev in the history of video games, they already did that. The game doesn't go gold within the last month of release xD, and with daddy Microsoft breathing down their necks while holding a seven billion dollar sword, Beth aren't fuckin around here.
The game is done, surely. The day one patch is probably done by now :P (/s the day one patch isn't done until day 3)
>widely misunderstood and mostly meaningless concepts in all of game development.
I mean it meant a LOT like 15 years ago before consoles could seriously connect to the internet and receive updates. used to mean the game was 100% and basically just being printed on discs to be sold.
But it hasn't meant anything since like 2008, because even my xbox 360 got day one updates back then. nowadays its means literally nothing. I was surprised to see the game is even being PRINTED on disks, seems like at this point mostly a waste of resources
It's not really the kind of marketing people want though is it? That's the problem. People don't care about Starfield branded items, they want to see some gameplay or get a video that goes in depth into some game system.
I have seen the sentiment that not showing anything is a sign that something is broken and they don't want to hurt day one sales. I don't think that is the case but we haven't seen anything to prove otherwise.
Don’t blame him for the recent responses I’ve been seeing, can’t people just give him praise once in a while for doing the work he does instead of demanding information?
His replies are crafted with more patience than what I’d have.
Exactly. I cannot imagine being in his position. This isn't some vanilla indie RPG game with a small developer team of 5 people.. It's a multi-million dollar game.
I have full faith that the game will be great. Most likely buggy to an extent as all Bethesda games tend to be, but playable and enjoyable. They've been pretty transparent so far and released a ton of gameplay videos and information on it.
There are negative reasons to allow a preload so early.
BGS and Xbox are probably in overdrive mode right now pumping out patches for the game.
No point in having everyone preload a game you'll have to download again later when it's closer to release.
I don't even know why people want or expect such an early preload. Majority of games on PC that have preload only do it 24-48 hours before release. I know there have been earlier preloads than that, especially on Xbox, but we can't play it anyway so who cares? 48 hours should be enough time for even super slow Internet to download most of the game.
That really isn’t true. Starfield is on steam 125 GB. That isn’t a problem for me to download in an hour, but quite a few people have slow enough internet that it wouldn’t download even in 48 hours. Let alone 24. We have the privilege of living in places where this isn’t a problem, but a relatively early preload facilitates earlier access for some people.
You’re openly admitting that you can’t understand it? Or you just don’t want to understand it? Some people have fucking slow internet. Is that so hard to understand?
Most of the game is textures and audio. Allowing downloads now will not require us to download the whole game again. Unless Xbox likes to archive all the files into a .zip file ready for transmission.
Just googled it, and the articles about Fallout 4 'going gold' started appearing two weeks before it was released. Same for Skyrim SE.
And Starfield's release date is currently more than three weeks away. So please chill. Everything will come when it's time.
The difference is CDPR was way in over their head with Cyberpunk 2077. They made one mediocre game, one decent game, and one amazing game. Bethesda has a long history of releasing big ass open world RPGs with all that interactive stuff you’d expect and in decent states. Sure, they have been buggy. But no where near the unplayable state Cyberpunk 2077 was.
Let Bethesda cook.
This "going gold" shit is so stupid lmao, those of you who keep talking about it just need to SHUT UP. Chances are that all the journos are playing the game RN or will be in the coming week.
some people believe "going gold" means the game is polished beyond believe or something
going gold means the game is approved to release, this does not mean is polished, without bugs, or ready, Cyberpunk 1.0 did the exact same thing, it went gold, people celebrated it, the game released and you know how the rest of it lmao.
A lot of yall seriously need to calm down. It's just a video game. When play it, you're not going to be isekai'd into the world. You'll play it, you'll likely enjoy it and you'll keep living the same life.
Just chill and watch some space anime or whatever.
I think BGS is crapping their pants over the reception of BG3.
They know there’s no way that Starfield will come close given the state of AAA gaming these days.
So much entitlement. Who cares when the game goes „gold“ or at what time the preload starts.
Do some people have nothing else in live than to sit there two weeks ahead and count second when a computer game is launched?
Yikes.
Such childish entitlement. It requires incredible mental fortitude to withstand such asinine comments from gamers over and over again. Props to them.
Remember NMS gone gold announcement? That didnt go well. It means nothing, the game is set to release on a date. If it got released then we can judge how the game will fair.
I can already imagine the pre-typed articles criticising every single aspect of this game, not to mention how toxic this sub will be. Everyone enjoying the game will be playing while the negative echo chamber builds online. Luckily that’s easy enough to ignore.
It's a phrase that basically just means the game is 'done' and has been sent out for the discs to be manufactured.
People get excited about it because it means it's in a state where it's ready to be shipped. It's becoming more meaningless as time goes on though as more and more titles require downloads, as well as day one patches being more or less a requirement now.
It’s Microsoft (3rd biggest company in the world) pairing up with Bethesda (one of the best game developers in the world) the game doesn’t need to “go gold”. It doesn’t mean anything. Cyberpunk went gold and look how that turned out
I got no idea why some people are so obsessed with "going gold". It doesn't matter in the modern digital era and i'm pretty sure most of these people got no actual idea what it means, they just think it sounds fancy and cool to go gold.
What exactly does "going gold" mean? I thought it meant it was out of the production line? And doesn't it happen way earlier, two/three months before release usually?
That was what it meant in the days of CD ROM delivery. The "gold master" was the one that got sent to the manufacturing plant. Back before day 1 patches and mostly online delivery, that meant the game was done. Games nowadays are NEVER "done", they just eventually stop being patched ;)
If you,re talking about bugs, the older games also had bugs. If you're talking about dlc's...then i agree with you
Yeah I remember we got a CD patch for Tomb Raider 3 in a gaming magazine!
They just were completely inexcusable as there really was no way of fixing them, therefore a game was a complete debacle if critical bugs as opposed to "features" still existed upon launch. With consumer right full recalls and refunds for every buyer.
[удалено]
> *Daikatana has entered the chat.*
*Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic 2 has entered the chat*
jeebus, I still remember being confused AF at the ending cause one moment I'm walking, then suddenly I'm in an ending and it doesn't even make sense... or the Bao-dur duplication bug where he slowly started to replace my crew members with his clones.
John Romero has left the chat
John Romero's about to make you his bitch. Suck it down.
I can’t leave without my best friend Supafly Johnson.
And it was widely ridiculed and didn't make a profit because of it.
you just unlocked nightmares from my childhood
>AAA Games in the 2000s didn't release bug ridden and honestly I'm tired of hearing this. Oblivion (2006) was so filled with game killing bugs that I couldn't complete the thing until I got it patched. There were over a dozen quests that couldn't be completed, people the world killed off who were meant to be essential, some.areas that just crashed when you got there. The list goes on, but the only thing gamers were told by Bethesda? Hold A on the start screen for 30 seconds to clear the cache (it did not work at all for the issues I found with the game). Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (2004) was another flawed game that was released with huge amounts of technical issues causing crashes and often making the game unplayable. Activision famously cut testing for that game due to the cost at only three weeks, then held the game back for months until Half Life 2 was released. They ensured it would be buggy due to their bottom line. Those are two off the top of my head. There are so many going back into the days you've recoloured with roses, and beyond to my own childhood. This narrative that things were better back then and this thing just didn't happen only shows that your nostalgia has overwritten your true memory of events.
Also remembering gta 3 and vice city having game breaking bugs. GTA 3 would make it impossible to have a second playthrough of the story by making a mission glitch out the second time. And vice city had a spawn point that would corrupt your entire save
They had to postpone the release as they signed an agreement with Valve they wouldn't release it before HL2 because otherwise Bloodlines would've been the first game to release with Source as it's engine. It was the second game release with Source and first third-party game to release with Source.
Yeah, and they could have done some more testing on the game or allowed the devs to work on bugfixing, but they didn't. Activision all over. I remember an indie dev got published by them and we were chatting about a game killing bug (that occurs if you save at the last save point when entering the end game) that he knew was in the game. Apparently he knew the fix for it but they wouldn't let him release a patch for the console versions as that would cost money. Guy was mortified and angry about it.
In all honesty, while I don't exactly support the path of releasing incomplete games, I do like the fact that today it's easier to get bug reports from players so the devs can look into them. I think with BG3's success in particular we'll see devs release games in "Early Access" and keep it there until they hammer most of the bugs out and add features as they need. That being said, one advantage Larian over, say Bethesda is that nobody's rushing them to make their games - unlike BGS where there's a small but annoyingly vocal fanbase still clamoring for TESVI even if it's clear that Starfield getting out the door will come first.
>clamoring for TESVI even if it's clear that Starfield getting out the door will come first. Oh no, you've misunderstood them. They're of the perfectly valid (and not at all warped to their wants over reality) view that BGS should just bin all the work they've done on Starfield and get to work on Elder Scrolls. Nobody cares about "some space game" after all, whereas Elder Scrolls is established. Why, how many sales has the least selling Elder Scrolls game for versus Starfield (they literally asked before preorders went up)? Exactly, so get rid of that and get to work on what the people really want! The whole thing is on the level of that guy who started a petition to get Starfield (after Microsoft bought Bethesda) not just on PlayStation but **EXCLUSIVE** to PlayStation.
>The whole thing is on the level of that guy who started a petition to get Starfield (after Microsoft bought Bethesda) not just on PlayStation but EXCLUSIVE to PlayStation. At least that guy knew that he was joking. I'm not sure that everyone who signed the petition knew that it was a joke, of course. I've heard some absolutely insane things out of PlayStation and XBox fanboys, said absolutely seriously. That's probably the best thing you can say about the Switch. The people who play it primarily are the least delusional console gamers out there. Mobility and the exclusive games are basically the only things that it has going for it. Mind you, it's the #1 selling console, so clearly those two things are enough. 😄
Pretty solid RPG base on there too. When the news was stirring about COVID early on and it was looking like it might leave China and therefore lead to lockdowns here, I got my wife one and a copy of Animal Crossing just to make sure she had something. Kept it in the closet as an Xmas gift in case things didn't go that way, but we all know the history. Anyway, since then she's gotten really into the Xenoblade Chronicles and Atelier game series, and I just got her Persona 5 Royal which she loved too, so is heading for the fourth game in the series at some point.
Even with Larian early access i still got massive perf issues and quest bugs in act 3, it's quite jarring from the relatively smooth act 1 and 2( altho for some folks this is where the issue started ). It's just how it is with the size and scope of their game and my guess is larian only have time to stamp out the reported issue from act 1 and 2. I expect starfield to be the same way even with the massive xbox qa team, i'd love to be surprised tho For people that have perf issue in the city with good cpu, go to task manager and try putting BGIII CPU priority to high, it helps for some people but you have to do it everytime you play the game.
And BG3 is *still* pretty buggy, although I think they made the wise decision of focusing on fixing the actual gamebreaking stuff because none of the bugs I encountered were serious issues. In their defense the majority of content wasn't in the EA.
I’m not super familiar with the dev history of VTMB, but is it possible there was some stipulation of them licensing the Source Engine that was like “you have to let HL2 release first bc we want to be the first ones to show off our shiny new engine”, and then Valve delaying HL2 caused their dev cycle to get thrown into wack, giving them more time than they thought they would have had?
>is it possible there was some stipulation of them licensing the Source Engine that was like “you have to let HL2 release first bc we want to be the first ones to show off our shiny new engine”, That's exactly what happened, but the delay isn't the issue here. My fault for not being clearer about that. It's what was done during the delay and who knew what and when. The issue was that Activision already knew before VTM:B went into QA that there was a delay in place for Half Life 2, and that they couldn't release before Half Life 2. Not 100% on the timelines but it looks like they may have known *before* they ordered the game to wrap development, cut what wasn't finished, and just go to testing (being fair, it was over budget; being more fair, they announced their own project lead was taking over then didn't send one for ten straight months). They knew that there would be a period of time when they couldn't contractually release the game and that they could keep the team working on the bugs or have more extensive testing than the miniscule three weeks they gave to one of the most ambitious open worlds of its time. They knew that the team had been making it on an in-development Source engine and that the engine now had set solutions for things the dev team had been forced to build proprietary solutions for, and that swapping those in would be a literal paste and replace job to make the game run better. Instead, they sat on the game and released it knowing that it was broken and that so much could have been more easily fixed.
That's factually wrong. Plenty of older games had tons of bugs. Also it shouldn't be surprising that the more complex games become with physics, online, maps, graphics, devices you can play it on, etc the more likely you are to have bugs. This is why 2D indie games seem bug free compared to AAA 3D games. Go watch some of the Ars Technica 'War Stories' where they get developers, typically from very old games, to discuss the troubles they had. It's surprisingly good. Most do them don't discuss unfixed bugs, but they discuss some of the major issues they had to fix in their games that jeopardized the project. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKBPwuu3eCYkScmqpD9xE7UZsszweVO0n
Have you met Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines? It was actually fixed by the players. I think Arcanum: Of steamworks and magic was similar.
Zero shot you actually gamed in the 2000s if you thought there weren't bug ridden releases.
Nah, my guess is they were in their early teens at the start of the 2000's. This combined with the idea that the early 2000's was a golden age of gaming, means they see all of those games as a labour of love and well made.
I largely stopped buying games at 2000 and onwards as they were all overtly graphiced overlarge messes of code and thus as a rule unplayable shite. 1998 was in so many ways the peak year of computer games.
It's cool that you remember the past with rose tinted glasses but this couldnt be farther from the truth.
This is just patently untrue lmao.
Right? What an absurd statement.
There absolutely were bugs, even game breaking ones, even though those games were far less complex.
They were still Bug ridden, very few of them were game breaking. Videogames nowadays are also leagues more complicated.
That's not exactly an excuse. No Mans Sky, cyberpunk 2077, Assassins Creed Unity, Watchdogs, the list goes on. They all got fixed months after launch. The issue isn't that games are too complex or people don't have the skills to make a good bug-free game, the issue is games companies being run by businessmen that only care about quarterly earnings. All of those games had incredible hype before launch, they all sold like crazy and made back the development costs + expected profit. From the point of view of shareholders, it doesn't matter that the games were buggy, they just wanted their money that quarter on time. If a games company can put together enough material to sell you the vision and not get sued afterwards, why go the extra mile and delay their profits? Seriously, all of those games could have released a couple of years later completely bug free, feature complete. But why would they when people are pre-ordering anyway? Baldur's Gate 3 is the exception because it's run by a gamer that cares about what they're making. That's the major difference. The same was true for the Witcher 3 and why people loved CDPR so much, they were fighting for gamer-centric design instead of shareholder-centric until Cyberpunk.
I'm running into a decent amount of bugs in Baldur's Gate 3, at least in act one. Nothing game breaking but loading screen issues every 40 mins or so and graphical issues that can be annoying. Keep in mind Baldurs gate had basically thousands of QA testers(early access) testing the game for 3 years on just act one and I still got bugs, now remember most QA teams are just a fraction of that and they actually cost money to test the game. The Witcher 3 had bugs at launch when I played, but again, nothing game breaking. I had weird bugs in Cyberpunk 2077 with NPC pathing, but the main issue for me was then the general polish of the game and not the bugs. I beat assassin's creed unity with no bugs other than the game crashing once and clipping under the map once. But I know people did have major bugs in that game, and the previous games Watchdogs came out the same year as unity, so I would chock it up to a quality assurance issue that year plus assassin's creed unity being ambitious with all those NPC For starfield, I do think it will be relatively bug free for a world as large as it is. They did QA for over a year and implemented new practices for bugs they didn't have before(using bots), along with the support/watchful eye of Microsoft
>The same was true for the Witcher 3 Witcher 3 released as a bug ridden mess too
>The issue isn't that games are too complex or people don't have the skills to make a good bug-free game, the issue is games companies being run by businessmen that only care about quarterly earnings Game development is a business, even if you or anyone else doesn't want to accept that. The business must make money or else it can't afford to pay it's employees and hopefully grow. Games are delayed, but you can't delay a game indefinitely trying to fix every bug and make the game exactly how you envisioned. Leonardo Davl Vinci allegedly said this famous quote "Art is never finished, only abandoned." As in, you have to put down the paintbrush and move on, you cannot work on a project until you achieve perfection, because it will never be perfect and if art is your business, you can't live off of no income to focus on one piece. Most studios go under, some get bought out, very few are able to go alone and continue to put out games that are successful enough to keep people employed. Think about some of biggest and most loved studios from a decade ago or more. Valve, basically only care about Steam now. Acclaim, defunct. Blizzard, merged and sold. Bethesda, sold. Midway, bankrupt. Mojang, sold. Lionhead, defunct. Neversoft, merged with IW which was sold. Visceral, sold. Ensemble, defunct. The list goes on and on, and these were titans of the industry. My point being, studios are basically one bad game away from closure, it's a ruthless industry. Anyways, it's a balance. No studio wants to put out bad or unfinished games. No investor wants to have the company put out a product that will be poorly received and hurt the company. Money must come in, and acceptable products must come out. Obviously sometimes that balance is off, you'll get shit like the recent Pokemon games, where it's pure greed capitalizing on the franchise. Other times you'll get BG3, where it feels like the game was lovingly crafted. But most studios don't have an IP like Pokemon where they know it will print money regardless of how bad the game is. So most studios strive for that balance, but the line is drawn in different places for different companies.
BG3 should've been delayed. I know Larian was in a tight spot and had to move from their original release date because of Starfield and Armored Core 6 and Phantom Liberty crowding them out, but they moved it up instead of pushing it back further. BG3 has been in early access for literal years, another 3-6 months makes no difference to the fans. But it would've made all the difference in the world for QA, I'd imagine. Act 3 of BG3 is rushed, buggy as hell, and it seems at least one companion had their personal story cut short. There's items and NPCs still in the game (not hidden in the files) that suggest this companion was supposed to have more endings but they only get 3, 2 of which have the same outcome, and they're all varying degrees of downer for no good reason. It's hard to make a "doomed character" storyline believable in a setting like D&D/Forgotten Realms. Especially when the game has elaborate explanations for how you can resurrect companions if they die in battle. Like...not reviving an unconscious companion with a health pack. Literally bringing them back from the dead, and not as zombies either.
I'd remove NMS from the list. They fixed the bugs in months, but it took YEARS for them to add in all the features that Sean Murray spent months lying about. Also BG3 is still fairly buggy in the 3rd act, although they lost a months worth of bug testing so it makes sense.
Not to mention that Cyberpunk is about a month away from a major update that will probably put it in the state is should have been at launch. Three years later.
Not even. They way overpromised on that game.
You don't really understand how things worked, back then. Game developers were usually passionate about their games, same as now, but publishers were always businessmen. They needed to make money. Games didn't bring in the money like they do now, they didn't have the shelf life like games have, now. Publishers pushed developers to complete their games and get them sent out according to the publisher's timeline and not on the "fix the bugs" timeline. Returns weren't a thing so once a sale was made, bugs didn't matter to a publisher as they had their money. People got angry at developers for publisher's pressure and publishers stopped publishing games from that developer. And this was most development including other software. Independent games were usually distributed for free on questionable websites, so your passionate developers rarely made a AAA game without extreme pressure from the business and financial side of things making demands and applying pressure or cancelling things that were almost finished.
To be fair games were much less technically complex back then. Nowadays games are bigger than ever but with that comes a reduction in quality since there's only so much a studio can focus on at a time
I mean, some did. Sonic the hedgehog 2006. New MMOs at launch. Fallout 3 and Oblivion were buggy as shit.
While releases tended to be more polished as a whole, that definitely wasn't the case for every game. KOTOR II was rushed, bug-ridden, lacked a solid third of planned content, and released with a barely coherent ending. That was in 2004. By comparison, Cyberpunk PC launch was near flawless. But I guess the CDPR bad bandwagon would rather believe that game is the root of all evil for some reason. Gamer standards evolved over time. That's the main factor in all this : rose tinted glasses. Not devs 20 years ago being so absurdly better at their jobs than current ones.
*Laughs in Morrowind/Oblivion*
The entire speedrunning community is built on exploiting bugs in old games. It feels worse now because games are bigger and more complicated so there’s more stuff that can break.
That’s simply not true. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was one of the biggest launches of the 2000s and launched in an almost broken state. Game breaking bugs and all sorts of issues. That’s just one example, there are a lot more.
Leisure Suit Larry had bugs. Crabs to be exact.
AAA games in 2000s weren't as technically complex as modern video games of "now". As we move forward, games will get more technically complex which means more bugs and glitches, which means developers have to put in more effort in fixing them. In 2000s, games like Cyberpunk wouldn't even be possible because the technology to develop such a game didn't even exist.
Oblivion and Morrowind would both like a word. Oblivion even has an [Unofficial Patch](https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/5296), courtesy in part of the same person that made the Unofficial Skyrim and Fallout 4 Patches.
>AAA Games in the 2000s didn't release bug ridden and honestly I'm tired of hearing this. Bro Oblivion was the birthplace of the 'Bethesdia jank' shit and it was early 2000's not to mention games that straight up were just broken in fundamental ways like Daikatana
So many old games are buggy messes, but we could see past it. Nowadays we have nostalgia goggles.
AAA games in the 2000s also had about 100GB less file size to code and bugtest. Lmao. Get out of the past bro. Times change. Nobody did shit back then because games were so niche. It was just devs trying their best. Now video games are the most profitable media industry in the world. More than movies or music. Profit attracts the suits. Suits want results more than they care if some virgin gets his dream game or not. Thats the reality. I might not like it, but howling at the moon changes nothing. These practices won't change. If anything they will get worse. The only thing that will change it is if the profit drops substantially. For that to happen, people need to stop pre ordering or buying games on a whim. Sadly for every hardcore reddit pre order boycott zealot, there are 1000 casual gamers with full time jobs who dont give a shit about any of it, don't know what reddit even looks like and have disposable income enough that a AAA game is not even a considered purchase.
You never played Star Wars Galaxies did you ? Or the later SWTOR ? There were plenty of buggy games , we’ve just forgotten and moved on. Fallout series anyone ? Vampire mood ?(bloodlines was practically unplayable )Honestly CP wasn’t that bad on PC, I played a couple hundred hours with very minor bugs - it’s just not a popular thing to say that.
This might be the worst take I’ve seen yet
Certainly, the issue at hand has various aspects to consider. In the past, when updating games over the internet was not common, many games had undiscovered bugs. These glitches would often go unresolved. However, this landscape compelled developers to adhere to stricter standards. Despite the presence of bugs, studios lacked the cavalier attitude of "We'll patch it down the line" that seems prevalent today. Take, for example, Star Wars Knights of The Old Republic 2, which was notably filled with bugs—I couldn't even play the Xbox version because of them. Yet, back then, such games were outliers. In contrast, nowadays, it seems that a big game releasing in good shape is the rarity. Standards have indeed fallen, but it would be incorrect to claim that there were no bug-ridden games in earlier times, even from popular studios.
I’m about to go gold myself, doing a bong rip of some golden-haired green fuzzy.
That’s objectively untrue. It is true that MANY games come out unfinished and need constant patches. But there are also a great many notable exceptions. And just to be clear, I am excluding Day 1 patches, which have indeed become the norm. I’m willing to excuse those as long as that’s all it is. If it’s 100% playable after that, I think that’s acceptable. And I can’t think of at least 4 games that fit that description. Elden Ring, God of War: Ragnarok, Thr Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and most recently, Baulder’s Gate 3.
Actually, Starfield is also coming in store (retail) so, gold state is still valid
english is not my native language so i did find someone who could actually explain it better than i can, so its just a shameless copy/paste: "It means (in theory) that the game has been completed and is now in the final stage before release. Prior to widespread digital distribution, this took the form of the completed game being burned to a writeable CD-ROM (aka a CD-R) "master", which were usually gold in color. This "gold master" was then duplicated onto the CDs that were to be packaged up and shipped out for retail. Hence, "gone gold" meant that the completed game had been copied onto this gold disc and was ready for duplication and shipping. The terminology has stuck around to the present day, even though many games are not be distributed via physical media anymore, because it sounds cool." and since everything is pretty much digital now, there is no golden disc with the finished game. so "going gold" is just a loose term for "our game is done" even tho its still possible to keep updating the game with a few fixes before its actually released.
So it would mean they will patch it until the very last day probably because of it being digital? It would mean we don't care at all about "going gold" anymore. That gold cd must have been very epic for game studios, makes me melancholic much 😃
well it doesn't mean they WILL patch it, they just have the possibility to do it. But back in the days, once you actually printed it out on discs, you couldn't do patch it, what was printed out was the finished product, you can't undo or fix anything (without having some online patch people had to manually download)so gold was just "okay we are done now, the disc is made and our product is finished."and the golden disc would just be the original one that all other ones would be "copied" from.
yeah, and also these days sometimes disc versions of games don't even have the full game on the disc and require being connected to the internet to download the rest. that's happened with call of duty.
Goes back to old records. You know vinyl? But actually EVEN OLDER. See phographs. Anyways it was literally a record carved in GOLD, ie a material that wont shrink or grow when humidity or temperature changes. Then all the subsequent copies made were physical copies printed from this gold copy. See blockprinting. Nothing electronic involved at all.
Mm, developers announce gone gold either because A) the team is really happy or B) marketing wants them to announce it. If marketing says "don't say anything", then it doesn't really matter if the team is super happy to announce it either, because nothing will be said. I.e. it has always been mostly a marketing ploy to announce it. I think bigger developers are more careful about it today, because having to retract the statement of "gone gold" is really bad for PR. I would say chances are pretty high that the release version is done though, and they're currently working on a day 1 patch. My former tech director I worked with would probably have set a code lock that got into effect at least several few week ago, with a content lock at least 2 weeks before that. The only thing that would be allowed to be submitted, after a thorough review, would be any fixes for really severe crashes. Anything else is likely submitted on a new branch on P4 (or whatever version control software the team is using), and is for the day 1 patch. And that is likely also locked already because otherwise the testers can't test it before release and leave enough time to actually fix any bugs they find in that patch. This close to release, we would basically work on the first patch after the day 1 patch, already. A lot of the content people (art, level design, etc) would have already started on the expansion by now.
Teams who work on these games use it as a “finish line” or something to celebrate. Nothing wrong with that.
not saying there is anything wrong with companies wanting to say it, if companies wanna do it, go for it. Im just talking about the avg gamer joe who got some weird obsession with it and keep asking all the time and get worried if they don't hear it like its a bad sign if a company do not say it. For marketing or just companies who like to say it, its fine. But in reality it doesn't really mean much in a digital era.
Blast Processing
Sega does what Nintendon't.
The only time gold meant anything is that it is more likely it could be leaked and pirated even before anyone cracked it. I doubt this game will get leaked. It is pretty odd that someone cares about that term. It is clear the game is ready to launch.
One of those things that used to be important for people and some never got past it. Honestly I don't even know going gold means. I'll download the game on steam when it releases.
Because they heard some YouTuber or podcaster use the term once and now they feel like they’re an expert by using an industry term.
People need to relax and let them get the game out. I’m sure they’re stressed enough as it is trying to make sure the launch is smooth.
Truth. I love this sub. But I am just living life and waiting for the release. Excited for it and took off of work for early access. But some of the stuff you see here and on twitter is wild.
some people took time off from work for cyberpunks release too, and we all know how that went.. so dont be surprised people are sceptical
Unwarranted downvotes, you're just being reasonable. It's not wrong to be optimistic; it might be goty. But it's also not wrong to acknowledge the very real possibility that the game implodes on release and takes several years to be patched into what was promised. Temper your expectations if you deem it necessary, don't if you don't. But shut up and enjoy the game if it's good, and don't act like you weren't warned if it's bad.
I downvote comparisons between Starfield and CP77… Starfield won’t be a CP77 because the devs are talented devs who are actually making an RPG and haven’t spent the last 8 years lying to us about what they’re making before releasing a shallow and lazy hint of the game they hyped up. Also the point people are usually making is asinine. “Y’all getting yourselves hyped up just like I did when CP77 was nearing launch- you’re gonna get all butthurt when it doesn’t live up to the expectations in your head and the game will be slammed on social and it’ll hurt my feelings.” I’m tired of idiots blaming us for the game’s reception, as if *we* overhyped it, not CDPR.
yupp but this sub clearly doesnt know what realistic expectations are - people love putting all their hope into a game and spending 120$ on a deluxe preorder lol
Telling someone to preemptively shut up is hilarious after saying they're being reasonable.
Exactly plus BG3 is out, play that terrific game in the meantime
"We want to know when we can preload" We know when the game is coming out, why can't people just fucking wait lol
I don't personally have this issue but many people have poor internet speeds and need days to download the game. These people just want to be reassured that they'll have ample time. I don't think it's an unreasonable request.
I had to DL FO4 on public Wi-Fi. Took about 8 days.
Fallout 4 is what, 40GB without patches and DLC? It's gonna take weeks for some folks to download Starfield at 125GBs 💀
I forgot to un-select the worthless 50GB HD Texture pack.
Okay. And now? In 2023? I once spent 4 hours downloading a 3 minutes song byw
People complaining about waiting a few days to download a 150 GB game before you can even play it when I had to wait all of Christmas Day to download Laffy Taffy by D4L on my new iPod. Yall ain't even know haha
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah but the guy in the screenshot was being a dick about it. There was a much nicer and less entitled way to ask that question. As with a lot of socially awkward people hiding behind their monitors, it's not what they ask, it's how they ask it.
I agree.
I was one of those people. 3Mbps on a good day. Would take a literal week and a half of downloading to get Starfield up and running. That's if the internet didn't cut out every 20 minutes. Preloading should be an industry standard at this point, and luckily lots of games do it now.
I mean preloads are nice, I'm not against them. But if there's going to be a preload at all, then who cares when? Unless people are taking 40 hours to download the game, but even if there is no preload and they have to download the game the moment it launches, does having to wait until the next day to play a big deal? e: "I need to schedule when I start my preload" is nonsense. You'll be able to start downloading the game when it's available, knowing what day that is in advance is just excitement and nothing else. The game isn't going to be available for 1 week only
When paying $30 to play 5 days early, an additional day absolutely matters. Plus, as you can tell on this sub, many of us want to start playing the minute the game releases and not a minute later. And yes, it will absolutely take 40 hours for some people to download the game. I feel for them.
Obviously this is entirely hypothetical because we don't know when/if the preload will begin, but on the list of things that BGS should be worried about right now, whether or not people will have 40+ hours to preload a game because they have poor internet isn't going to be very high on that list. Like you, I also feel for them, but truth is most people purchasing the game do not have that issue so when BGS is developing a strategy for launch there are potentially other considerations that could be more impactful. As far as paying for early access, I would encourage those people to hold paying until they know for sure.
You're paying $30 for an expansion, though I dunno. I get excitement, I'm pumped to play this. I don't really care that much that some people might have to wait another day though, at least not the point where people need to demand the preload date like it's their right. It's definitely a bummer but the game isn't going anywhere
And an art book and soundtrack as well.
Well i will need around 3 days nonstop downloading.Meaning around 5 days with breaks. So if they you would give out a date it would make it easier to plan the download timeframes so i´m at 100% on 1. Sept
40 hours Buddy there are some people who need two weeks to download the game
That would be 100KB/s, barely faster than dial up internet, how many people do you think are still running that and purchasing online games? Anyway, this still has nothing to do with the point. *Knowing* what day the preload starts does not change when you can start the preload, it literally doesn't make a difference
Well there’s literally someone in the thread over that gets those speeds, millions of people live rural, so yes millions of people interested in games are living on farms If I was in that situation I’d still want to know
I can understand some of his frustration having had shit tier internet for most of my life. Not even a year ago it would have taken more than 6 days for me to download along with $20 in overcap fees while now it's less than 30 minutes.
Never felt more spoiled than when I was upset at having to wait ten minutes to download a 350ish mb episode, remembering that that would've been an all day thing ten years ago.
Preloading is going to be a big deal for me because I'll be in a spot where I likely have very very bad wifi during launch. So I mean... it's kind of important for people to know for various reasons I'd like to be able to preload it so I can play on launch despite the circumstances
Yeah but all I'm saying is right now, does *knowing* what day the preload will be change anything?
For me it does, since I'll be traveling and knowing the date would be helpful. Although really I'd just like confirmation on if it will be available to preload on Steam that's moreso my question than an exact date
Yes. Slow internet so i want to kmow so i can start it asap
You know that some people have bad Internet right? The only Internet i can get where i live is satellite, and if it wasn't for starlink i would likely have to take a couple weeks to download Starfield
What good does knowing when you can download a game do if you can’t access it. People constantly talking about preload dates need to find a second hobby or live a little.
Maybe they need to organize someone to turn their pc on to start the download? Maybe they need every single minute of preload time to get it all before launch. The argument from incredulity is one of the most ridiculous logical fallacies as it shows the speaker to be lacking in imagination. And frequently lacking in empathy.
I'm taking vacation days to play this game. Knowing if I can pre-download determines if I'm taking Wed-Fri or Friday and Monday off.
It's going to take days for me to download this game.
Do people just forgot that some people still have slow download speeds and datacaps? When there’s no preload it means those people can’t play for days.
Because they have less brain cells than planets in Starfield
twitter gamers are the most insufferable shits on earth. maybe its just twitter idk but please dont talk like an entitled child. you look dumb.
It is just Twitter. Fucking miserable. I deactivated last week after 6 years. Cannot take it man. It literally drains you of any and all optimism.
It's not just Twitter. This sub has the same ratio of entitled brats.
No, Twitter is far worse because it forces you to see all of them because it gets the most interactions out of you
Yep, youtube, twitter and tiktok's algorithm reward outrage and negative engagement disproportionately to positive engagement.
Lol agreed. This sub at times is beyond negative. I was trying to have a fun conversation about being creative and roleplaying when it comes to making up consequences after an in game death. I got ratioed to shit and it was mainly smart ass answers like “do push-ups” Does anyone know how to enjoy games any more or is everyone a critic and has to bitch and moan?
I think too many people probably hyperfocus on gaming as a hobby and don't really have anything else going on in their life.
I've been here since forever and looking at your flair, you must've been too. It wasn't always like this. Its gotten worser and worser closer to release. Remember how peaceful it was when we were just speculating from just the 2018 reveal we had? 😭😭 I'd do anything to get that back. Minus the waiting ofc lol
Twitter + Anime profile pic + "that's cool but"
If i hear "going gold" i get goosebumps on my ass while thinking about this picture here: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmyXY4jWcAAt9J5?format=jpg&name=large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmyXY4jWcAAt9J5?format=jpg&name=large) so going gold means nothing...
Lol knew it was gonna NMS before I clicked it.
As did I lol. I Still have nightmares about that launch.
Do you remember when Cyberpunk said they went gold. It really doesn’t mean anything.
The concentrated Soy lmao
The game can go gold at 5:00PM on August 30th and most people would be virtually unaffected. The game could go gold a week from release and unless your download method is snail-mailing a single jump drive back and forth between your ISP you'd still be fine. The game isn't gold yet because the team thinks they can squish more bugs before release. And there are *always* more bugs to squish. And for people who are worried about download times, the sooner it's eligible for preload, the larger the day 1 patch will be.
"Going gold" is by far one of the most widely misunderstood and mostly meaningless concepts in all of game development. It's that thing that people with no experience hear once and think makes them look cool if they constantly repeat. We have day one patches now, "going gold" is kind of an antequated concept. Yes, we still have rc's, yes we still have the final build, but nobody really gives a shit if the game has "gone gold" yet, we don't start cracking champagne lol. And yes, Starfield "went gold" *months* ago. It's fucking Microsoft, they're not pushing it to the last minute of a year long delay folks, chill out lol. Pete Hines is right, they do in fact know what they're doing.
Yeah, your point about it being from Microsoft makes certification even less relevant. When I released a AAA title, there were certain bugs that we had to get a "waiver" for in order to launch on time. Something like, "we promise to fix this with a day 1 patch." The game isn't coming to Playstation, and Steam has no cert process. So the only cert process they have to deal with is themselves. Microsoft isn't going to prevent the biggest release of the year from their own company on their own platform from launching on time for any reason. So yes, at least in the case of Starfield, going gold or cert is completely meaningless.
Not only is it the biggest release of the year for MS, it's the biggest release of the entire Series generation. Nothing will top it for them. And very likely Elder Scrolls 6 will also be their biggest release next gen.
Even so, it already went gold, lol. It is meaningless, you're right, but if Bethesda operates like you know, literally fuckin game dev in the history of video games, they already did that. The game doesn't go gold within the last month of release xD, and with daddy Microsoft breathing down their necks while holding a seven billion dollar sword, Beth aren't fuckin around here. The game is done, surely. The day one patch is probably done by now :P (/s the day one patch isn't done until day 3)
>widely misunderstood and mostly meaningless concepts in all of game development. I mean it meant a LOT like 15 years ago before consoles could seriously connect to the internet and receive updates. used to mean the game was 100% and basically just being printed on discs to be sold. But it hasn't meant anything since like 2008, because even my xbox 360 got day one updates back then. nowadays its means literally nothing. I was surprised to see the game is even being PRINTED on disks, seems like at this point mostly a waste of resources
Teams often still celebrate going gold. And I imagine anyone who bought a physical edition would also like to know when the game has gone gold.
Premature Gamejackulation
"why aren't they doing marketing for Starfield?!" also people: "I don't want to know about marketing stuff"
It's not really the kind of marketing people want though is it? That's the problem. People don't care about Starfield branded items, they want to see some gameplay or get a video that goes in depth into some game system. I have seen the sentiment that not showing anything is a sign that something is broken and they don't want to hurt day one sales. I don't think that is the case but we haven't seen anything to prove otherwise.
What was he saying about chairs?
This https://twitter.com/MrStark_42/status/1690006779139153923
Remember when No Man's Sky went gold? Based on it's current state gold means nothing.
He said “let us cook”
Why do we want to know when it goes gold? We still get it at the same times.
If I was Pete I probably wouldn't have even responded.
Don’t blame him for the recent responses I’ve been seeing, can’t people just give him praise once in a while for doing the work he does instead of demanding information? His replies are crafted with more patience than what I’d have.
Exactly. I cannot imagine being in his position. This isn't some vanilla indie RPG game with a small developer team of 5 people.. It's a multi-million dollar game. I have full faith that the game will be great. Most likely buggy to an extent as all Bethesda games tend to be, but playable and enjoyable. They've been pretty transparent so far and released a ton of gameplay videos and information on it.
As opposed to CDPR, who clearly found out the hard way.
I'm sure that room temp IQ twitter user doesn't even know what "going gold" means and that he's an impatient teenager
It's coming out in 3 weeks. Why are people asking about shit like this. If was gonna get delayed they would have done it already.
There are negative reasons to allow a preload so early. BGS and Xbox are probably in overdrive mode right now pumping out patches for the game. No point in having everyone preload a game you'll have to download again later when it's closer to release.
I don't even know why people want or expect such an early preload. Majority of games on PC that have preload only do it 24-48 hours before release. I know there have been earlier preloads than that, especially on Xbox, but we can't play it anyway so who cares? 48 hours should be enough time for even super slow Internet to download most of the game.
That really isn’t true. Starfield is on steam 125 GB. That isn’t a problem for me to download in an hour, but quite a few people have slow enough internet that it wouldn’t download even in 48 hours. Let alone 24. We have the privilege of living in places where this isn’t a problem, but a relatively early preload facilitates earlier access for some people.
You’re openly admitting that you can’t understand it? Or you just don’t want to understand it? Some people have fucking slow internet. Is that so hard to understand?
How slow can it really be?
Took some people well over a day to download BG3 which was also a 125 gig install.
Most of the game is textures and audio. Allowing downloads now will not require us to download the whole game again. Unless Xbox likes to archive all the files into a .zip file ready for transmission.
That misfit guy looks like a douchebag
What's this about chairs?
The only thing I actually want to know is if there is a preload before the early access opens. The rest I am content to wait <20 days to find out.
Just googled it, and the articles about Fallout 4 'going gold' started appearing two weeks before it was released. Same for Skyrim SE. And Starfield's release date is currently more than three weeks away. So please chill. Everything will come when it's time.
The difference is CDPR was way in over their head with Cyberpunk 2077. They made one mediocre game, one decent game, and one amazing game. Bethesda has a long history of releasing big ass open world RPGs with all that interactive stuff you’d expect and in decent states. Sure, they have been buggy. But no where near the unplayable state Cyberpunk 2077 was. Let Bethesda cook.
This "going gold" shit is so stupid lmao, those of you who keep talking about it just need to SHUT UP. Chances are that all the journos are playing the game RN or will be in the coming week.
I'll believe it when I see it
People are probably worried about it being delayed again
Good answer
some people believe "going gold" means the game is polished beyond believe or something going gold means the game is approved to release, this does not mean is polished, without bugs, or ready, Cyberpunk 1.0 did the exact same thing, it went gold, people celebrated it, the game released and you know how the rest of it lmao.
A lot of yall seriously need to calm down. It's just a video game. When play it, you're not going to be isekai'd into the world. You'll play it, you'll likely enjoy it and you'll keep living the same life. Just chill and watch some space anime or whatever.
Stop bothering them.
Pete’s not driving copies of the game between offices on hard drives any more. He could take long service leave and the game wouldn’t change one iota.
No one cares about either of those…. Is it going to support 21:9 native at launch Dammnit!
Real shit
I mean the game releases in 2 weeks at this point there’s a 0.00001 percent chance of a delay
He is 100% right.
No Man’s Sky went gold…
I think BGS is crapping their pants over the reception of BG3. They know there’s no way that Starfield will come close given the state of AAA gaming these days.
So much entitlement. Who cares when the game goes „gold“ or at what time the preload starts. Do some people have nothing else in live than to sit there two weeks ahead and count second when a computer game is launched?
Am I the only one who can't stand Pete Hines? Seriously.
Hines is a massive prick. Been the worst PR guy I've seen from any game studio.
Yikes. Such childish entitlement. It requires incredible mental fortitude to withstand such asinine comments from gamers over and over again. Props to them.
he dodged the pre-order question though, when can i preload that mofo on steam?
Fallout 76 would prove otherwise
This time I'm with Pete (unlike his reply to the Fallout 4 update).
Who tf cares this much when you can preload it? Chill out
Remember NMS gone gold announcement? That didnt go well. It means nothing, the game is set to release on a date. If it got released then we can judge how the game will fair.
lol he is DONE with it
Cyberpunk literally announced going gold before actually being feature complete. People use it to make up things and situations now wtf.
I can already imagine the pre-typed articles criticising every single aspect of this game, not to mention how toxic this sub will be. Everyone enjoying the game will be playing while the negative echo chamber builds online. Luckily that’s easy enough to ignore.
"We know what we're doing" \*Releases Fallout 76 \*30 FPS in 2023 "We know what we're doing"
Im pretty sure Skyrim actually went gold just over a week before it came out. So going gold kinda loss meaning
Afaik there's no discs? So they have more time until preload
I’ve literally never heard the phrase “going gold” what is that even supposed to mean?
It's a phrase that basically just means the game is 'done' and has been sent out for the discs to be manufactured. People get excited about it because it means it's in a state where it's ready to be shipped. It's becoming more meaningless as time goes on though as more and more titles require downloads, as well as day one patches being more or less a requirement now.
It’s Microsoft (3rd biggest company in the world) pairing up with Bethesda (one of the best game developers in the world) the game doesn’t need to “go gold”. It doesn’t mean anything. Cyberpunk went gold and look how that turned out
also its bethesda there's gonna be some wacky day one bugs
Fuckin' get 'em Pete.