Starfield is a single-player MMO

 



I was thinking about the criticisms of Starfield which boil down to these main points.

  • It is a boring game
  • The game doesn't have interesting characters
  • Starfield has a boring story that does not pull in the player. 
  • The planets are not handcrafted and are boring
  • There is no character to the factions
  • Space travel is clunky and not as interesting as in other space games
  • Combat is not very interesting
  • The skills are not deep enough
  • You don't feel the grandeur of space.

Why Starfield is like EverQuest


All these concerns are valid, but they are missing something very important. Starfield is essentially a single-player MMO game. It is not a traditional RPG game. It is not a Dragon Age or Mass Effect style game. To be honest, I would rather Starfield stick to what makes it great and not become another clone of those games.

Try to be honest here. Starfield is more like EverQuest in 1999 than Mass Effect in 2007. It may sound strange that a single-player game has more in common with a late 90s MMO but one has to consider the many features in Starfield that make it more of a MMO than a regular RPG.

Role-playing is an option in Starfield, but some players complain that your choices do not matter in the game. However, what I think players are missing about Starfield is that the game has some really deep mechanics that go beyond interacting with characters. 

Starfield's strength is not necessarily in its characters but in its ability of the player to build things. That is as simple as it is. Building something over interacting passively is what really distinguishes Starfield from other games out there. It is not a game that is all about the building of a character but of extending the reaches of human society beyond the reaches of the Settled Systems. 

Everquest, similarly had a story but was focused on the construction of a virtual community on the planet that it was set on.  

This is what the developers focused on in the game. Construction and exploration is the name of the game. While all the traditional RPG elements are there, it is really this sense you have incredibly large galaxy out there for you to discover and tame is an incredibly interesting prospect. 

I have barely even started building outposts in Starfield. The idea of building a home on another planet is a highly tantalizing idea that is truly unique to Starfield. It was the same alluring idea that made so many players stay with EverQuest, even when WOW surpassed it in subscribers in 2004. 

EverQuest when it was released in 1999, was all about building new worlds rather being a theme park like many later games. EverQuest was all about building community. While Starfield may not have an online aspect, Starfield's deep crafting systems are really the highlight of this game. Older games like Everquest rewarded players who stuck with the game rather than expecting it to be done in a couple of days. This is one of the reasons that I compare these two games. 

Starfield would translate well into the MMO genre. Let's see what Bethesda has up their sleeves. 

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