Bethesda's Starfield

[Blackhawk]

1. I was surprised when the robot said the actual name I gave my character. I tried to go the firefly route and I built a character that somewhat resembles Nathan Fillion and called him Malcolm Reynolds. Now people in the game call me Captain Reynolds. It was a nice surprise and I wonder how many last names they had their voice actors record.

1011

The name I picked (Pierce) just happens to be on that list.

I have to wonder, though - you gave your character two names, and the game correctly parsed which one was your last name? If so, that's an improvement for Bethesda. In the past, giving yourself a last name just resulted in every reference to you (in logs, documents, etc.) including your full name.

[Scraper]

1. I was surprised when the robot said the actual name I gave my character. I tried to go the firefly route and I built a character that somewhat resembles Nathan Fillion and called him Malcolm Reynolds. Now people in the game call me Captain Reynolds. It was a nice surprise and I wonder how many last names they had their voice actors record.

1011

The name I picked (Pierce) just happens to be on that list.

I have to wonder, though - you gave your character two names, and the game correctly parsed which one was your last name? If so, that's an improvement for Bethesda. In the past, giving yourself a last name just resulted in every reference to you (in logs, documents, etc.) including your full name.

Yep I put both a first and last name on the line and the NPCs correctly use Captain Reynolds.

[jztemple2]

Probably some spoilers in the article, so beware

Starfield's randomization, explained: what will be the same for every player, and what won't

Starfield gives you over 1,000 planets and moons to explore in the galaxy, but unlike other Bethesda RPGs like Skyrim and Fallout 4, the locations you visit and the things you find there won't always be the same as what other players find.

That means if you see someone online showing off a cool weapon, spacesuit, or even a location they found on the surface of a planet, you might not be able to find it for yourself—even if you're given precise directions.

That's because, even though the RPG is full of hand-crafted quests, locations, levels, weapons, and gear, procedural generation plays a big part in Starfield. This isn't the first time Bethesda has used randomization—The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games use it, too—but Starfield is much bigger than previous Bethesda RPGs, and it uses randomization in some different (and sometimes confusing) ways.

Here's how randomization works in Starfield.

[Octavious]

I actually like that. I really should dive back in this week. Maybe my crankypants mood has passed?

[Smoove_B]

I actually like that. I really should dive back in this week. Maybe my crankypants mood has passed?

I think the biggest change for me was realizing my normal way of doing things (walking from Point A to Point B) doesn't really work in this game. Unless I'm on a planet and specifically doing a survey, I'm pretty much fast traveling between locations - jumping from a building on one planet to a different building on a different planet in another system.

Of course the space element of the game (i.e. flying around in space) isn't as interesting to me as other parts of the game so YMMV.

Hell, when I get a new mission I go into the log (default "L" button) and have the game show me on the map where the mission is ("B" key?). The game will auto zip through the menu levels (zoom out, zoom in) and then I just fast travel to that location. I get why the menus are dense and layered. But you can just press a few buttons instead of needing to back out, back out, back out, zoom in, zoom in, select, confirm every time you need to do something.

[naednek]

I was going to wait for a bit. But I finished up BG3 over the weekend and watched a couple more reviews last night, and I think this looks interesting enough to give it a shot.

Bethesda is hit and miss for me (love Elder Scrolls, really disliked Fallout) so it'll be interesting to see if this one clicks.

This feels more like fallout than Elder Scrolls, just a warning. I personally liked the fallout series better than elderscrolls. Minus the base building.

[Hyena]

2. I hit the 12 hour mark and it didn't change the game for me. Spoiler for specifics

Spoiler:

The part where you get powers

. I was already digging the game before that, in fact I flew from Akila to Neon and was hooked at that point after doing missions at both spots. The game is just so varied. It can feel like a space western (Firefly) and other spots feel like Cyberpunk 2077. I like the variety.

Man, I must be WAAAAY behind. I'm over 40 hours in, so I glanced at your spoiler and had no idea that was even a thing!

I'm too busy enjoying all the side quests and exploration, so the main quest is taking a back seat to my curiosity (as is usually the case in Bethesda games). I even took over the mantle of a certain pirate-hunting vigilante with a decent new ship...

[naednek]

2. I hit the 12 hour mark and it didn't change the game for me. Spoiler for specifics

Spoiler:

The part where you get powers

. I was already digging the game before that, in fact I flew from Akila to Neon and was hooked at that point after doing missions at both spots. The game is just so varied. It can feel like a space western (Firefly) and other spots feel like Cyberpunk 2077. I like the variety.

Man, I must be WAAAAY behind. I'm over 40 hours in, so I glanced at your spoiler and had no idea that was even a thing!

Same thing. I'm about 25 hours in, felt like i did a good balance between side and main. Figured hey this spoiler should be safe to read... Welp, that wasn't something I was expecting to see in this game.

[Scraper]

2. I hit the 12 hour mark and it didn't change the game for me. Spoiler for specifics

Spoiler:

The part where you get powers

. I was already digging the game before that, in fact I flew from Akila to Neon and was hooked at that point after doing missions at both spots. The game is just so varied. It can feel like a space western (Firefly) and other spots feel like Cyberpunk 2077. I like the variety.

Man, I must be WAAAAY behind. I'm over 40 hours in, so I glanced at your spoiler and had no idea that was even a thing!

Same thing. I'm about 25 hours in, felt like i did a good balance between side and main. Figured hey this spoiler should be safe to read... Welp, that wasn't something I was expecting to see in this game.

I would bet that if you only did main mission stuff you could get to my spoiler part in about 5 hours of gameplay. It's not that far into the main story.

[coopasonic]

There is no (good) reason to rush the main quest. Enjoy the side content. It is all pretty awesome, and that thing you get in the spoiler had very little gameplay impact for me.

On the other hand, I will say you get a lot of fairly easy stuff to do later in the main quest and each piece of it gives you 200xp which adds up quickly. The other thing is that it kind of makes everything more interesting, but kind of indirectly just through understanding.

[Hyena]

2. I hit the 12 hour mark and it didn't change the game for me. Spoiler for specifics

Spoiler:

The part where you get powers

. I was already digging the game before that, in fact I flew from Akila to Neon and was hooked at that point after doing missions at both spots. The game is just so varied. It can feel like a space western (Firefly) and other spots feel like Cyberpunk 2077. I like the variety.

Man, I must be WAAAAY behind. I'm over 40 hours in, so I glanced at your spoiler and had no idea that was even a thing!

Same thing. I'm about 25 hours in, felt like i did a good balance between side and main. Figured hey this spoiler should be safe to read... Welp, that wasn't something I was expecting to see in this game.

I would bet that if you only did main mission stuff you could get to my spoiler part in about 5 hours of gameplay. It's not that far into the main story.

Oh, I'm not bothered at all. I'm still looking forward to getting to it. This game is scratching EXACTLY the itch I've been looking for. Burnt out on fantasy for now, but couldn't find a good sci-fi. Grabbed SpaceBourne just to tide me over until this one came out, but man...this is good stuff. Having a blast.

[Grifman]

I got about 2.5 hours in last night and me and my robot were over-encumbered for most of it I need to go back and read this thread now that I’m in game. I know I shouldn’t be picking up everything, especially with the robot deriding me at every turn about it, but it’s a hard habit to break.

My companion of choice (Sarah) reliably chides me for being a pack-rat once my personal inventory starts to fill up.

I hate this and I don’t know why Bethesda continues with this. It was the same in Fallout 4, and it is so annoying. It serves no purpose.

[Octavious]

BG3 isn't any better. My camp chest has more magical loot than I've probably ever collected in all my time in Skyrim.

[Grifman]

I'm pretty much fast traveling between locations - jumping from a building on one planet to a different building on a different planet in another system.

Of course the space element of the game (i.e. flying around in space) isn't as interesting to me as other parts of the game so YMMV.

I have read that by doing fast travel this way, you will miss random events in space. A better way is to go to your ship, pick a location and take off. At that point the game may offer a random event along the way - derelict ship, pirate attack, freighter to loot, etc. But I do understand that sometimes you just want to move on. Just pointing out that you might miss something the game offers to make space more interesting.

[jztemple2]

Question about surveying. Over on the lower right in the window it says "deciduous forest (90%)". What does the 90% mean? Overall I've surveyed the planet to 92%, so it the 90% tied into that 92% or is it something else.

By the way, I'm missing three damn animals and it's driving me crazy

[Skinypupy]

I was going to wait for a bit. But I finished up BG3 over the weekend and watched a couple more reviews last night, and I think this looks interesting enough to give it a shot.

Bethesda is hit and miss for me (love Elder Scrolls, really disliked Fallout) so it'll be interesting to see if this one clicks.

This feels more like fallout than Elder Scrolls, just a warning. I personally liked the fallout series better than elderscrolls. Minus the base building.

Most of my dislike of Fallout was the post-apocalyptic setting, which is one that has just never jived with me at all. I generally dig good sci-fi (Elite Dangerous, No Man’s Sky, Mass Effect, etc)

Downloading now, but with the major house renovations that kick into high gear tomorrow, I doubt I’ll get much time to play this week.

[Octavious]

Ya we bought half of Ikea yesterday, but it's not getting mailed to us until Saturday. I probably should get some time in while I have it.

[naednek]

Ya we bought half of Ikea yesterday, but it's not getting mailed to us until Saturday. I probably should get some time in while I have it.

what? you didn't want to experience the rat maze of finding your way out of the store?

[Apollo]

Well, 4 hours in and its definitely not grabbing me yet, but that could just be my Gamer Burnout Syndrome kicking in again. One thing that is annoying the hell out of me right now is the weapons. I'm getting a bad "Borderlands" vibe from all the weapons, of which there are an infinite number of variations and mods guaranteed to make choosing a weapon an almost impossible procedure. After spending a half hour looking at a vendor's weapon selection and having no idea of which weapon I should buy, I finally just quit the game. I'll be back, but I'm definitely in the "Not enjoying any aspect of this game so far" crowd. And it seems to be getting worse the longer I play...

[coopasonic]

Question about surveying. Over on the lower right in the window it says "deciduous forest (90%)". What does the 90% mean? Overall I've surveyed the planet to 92%, so it the 90% tied into that 92% or is it something else.

By the way, I'm missing three damn animals and it's driving me crazy

Yes I think it is the progress specific to that biome. If you targeted another biome you would likely see a lower number. I don't think I've ever looked at that screen after visiting a planet once.

From a time vs money/xp standpoint. I think you are wasting time, but if you enjoy it, that's what counts.

[Octavious]

Ya we bought half of Ikea yesterday, but it's not getting mailed to us until Saturday. I probably should get some time in while I have it.

what? you didn't want to experience the rat maze of finding your way out of the store?

Oh it's much worse than that. My wife had to buy all the stuff in store to get a student discount her sister had. She had to go through the entire store and collect everything. Self checkout (because they have like 1 staffed register). And then since there was so much large stuff she had to go to another area to schedule a delivery. Which is some third party called Lugg. Which will cost like 120 with tip. So I think she netted maybe 100 in discounts after paying the shipping. Doesn't seem worth it. Would have been easier to rent a truck, but the discount was expiring Tuesday and I couldn't take off.

So, collect all the stuff yourself, check yourself out. Drag it somewhere else to then pay an additional fee to have it sent home. And then of course we have to assemble it all. It's madness...

[coopasonic]

Well, 4 hours in and its definitely not grabbing me yet, but that could just be my Gamer Burnout Syndrome kicking in again. One thing that is annoying the hell out of me right now is the weapons. I'm getting a bad "Borderlands" vibe from all the weapons, of which there are an infinite number of variations and mods guaranteed to make choosing a weapon an almost impossible procedure. After spending a half hour looking at a vendor's weapon selection and having no idea of which weapon I should buy, I finally just quit the game. I'll be back, but I'm definitely in the "Not enjoying any aspect of this game so far" crowd. And it seems to be getting worse the longer I play...

Go do missions and kill and take the weapons that hurt you the most! I really like the grendel and marauder as solid SMG/assault rifle ballistic weapons. Eventually you will be able to build your own weapon mods but that's down the skill tree a bit, the good mods anyway.

[jztemple2]

Well, 4 hours in and its definitely not grabbing me yet, but that could just be my Gamer Burnout Syndrome kicking in again. One thing that is annoying the hell out of me right now is the weapons. I'm getting a bad "Borderlands" vibe from all the weapons, of which there are an infinite number of variations and mods guaranteed to make choosing a weapon an almost impossible procedure. After spending a half hour looking at a vendor's weapon selection and having no idea of which weapon I should buy, I finally just quit the game. I'll be back, but I'm definitely in the "Not enjoying any aspect of this game so far" crowd. And it seems to be getting worse the longer I play...

Go do missions and kill and take the weapons that hurt you the most! I really like the grendel and marauder as solid SMG/assault rifle ballistic weapons. Eventually you will be able to build your own weapon mods but that's down the skill tree a bit, the good mods anyway.

Agreed, I think I've actually only bought one weapon in 30 hours. Just keep picking up what people drop or especially what you find in cases.

[coopasonic]

I have a wakizashi that does 49 damage. That's fun in stealth.

[jztemple2]

Question about surveying. Over on the lower right in the window it says "deciduous forest (90%)". What does the 90% mean? Overall I've surveyed the planet to 92%, so it the 90% tied into that 92% or is it something else.

By the way, I'm missing three damn animals and it's driving me crazy

Yes I think it is the progress specific to that biome. If you targeted another biome you would likely see a lower number. I don't think I've ever looked at that screen after visiting a planet once.

From a time vs money/xp standpoint. I think you are wasting time, but if you enjoy it, that's what counts.

I just wanted to do one complete survey, just for the experience, but at this rate I'm not going to do it often. It's that elusive last few critters that are a nuisance. I supposed that there will be a wiki soon of where to find which flora and fauna on each planet

[Apollo]

Well, 4 hours in and its definitely not grabbing me yet, but that could just be my Gamer Burnout Syndrome kicking in again. One thing that is annoying the hell out of me right now is the weapons. I'm getting a bad "Borderlands" vibe from all the weapons, of which there are an infinite number of variations and mods guaranteed to make choosing a weapon an almost impossible procedure. After spending a half hour looking at a vendor's weapon selection and having no idea of which weapon I should buy, I finally just quit the game. I'll be back, but I'm definitely in the "Not enjoying any aspect of this game so far" crowd. And it seems to be getting worse the longer I play...

Go do missions and kill and take the weapons that hurt you the most! I really like the grendel and marauder as solid SMG/assault rifle ballistic weapons. Eventually you will be able to build your own weapon mods but that's down the skill tree a bit, the good mods anyway.

Easier said than done. Every firefight (and this is true of every FPS I play) is chaos and I have no idea of how much damage I'm taking, who's shooting at me, etc. I just don't understand why they made all the guns vary so much in so many ways.

In Real Life, though I am far from a gun nut, I can easily determine what weapon would fit my needs based on caliber, rate of fire, range, sights etc. But the weapons in this game are very hard for me to get a handle on since every single weapon can have an infinite number of versions that have vastly different damage amounts, rates of fire, accuracy, etc. If each weapon did the same amount of damage per round fired every time it was fired (whether semi-auto or full automatic), even with all the other characteristics, it would be simple for me to determine what I need.

I wish they would just give us a Damage Per Second rating for each weapon or stop having each and every weapon featuring vastly different damage, rates of fire, accuracy, range, etc. depending on mods or whether or not it is a higher grade version, etc. I would rather see a system like JA3 where a gun can be modified but a pistol is not going to behave like an assault rifle which in turn will not behave like a shotgun, etc. so I could figure out what was best for any given situation.

[jztemple2]

Well, 4 hours in and its definitely not grabbing me yet, but that could just be my Gamer Burnout Syndrome kicking in again. One thing that is annoying the hell out of me right now is the weapons. I'm getting a bad "Borderlands" vibe from all the weapons, of which there are an infinite number of variations and mods guaranteed to make choosing a weapon an almost impossible procedure. After spending a half hour looking at a vendor's weapon selection and having no idea of which weapon I should buy, I finally just quit the game. I'll be back, but I'm definitely in the "Not enjoying any aspect of this game so far" crowd. And it seems to be getting worse the longer I play...

Go do missions and kill and take the weapons that hurt you the most! I really like the grendel and marauder as solid SMG/assault rifle ballistic weapons. Eventually you will be able to build your own weapon mods but that's down the skill tree a bit, the good mods anyway.

Easier said than done. Every firefight (and this is true of every FPS I play) is chaos and I have no idea of how much damage I'm taking, who's shooting at me, etc. I just don't understand why they made all the guns vary so much in so many ways.

Well, you have a health bar so you can see the damage you are taking. And the game is very good at allowing use of cover, so minimize the number of people who can shoot at you, or hide entirely then poke out enough to shoot at just one enemy.

Use a skill point to focus on either ballistic weapons or lasers. I chose lasers and early on there is only one decent laser rifle and one decent laser pistol, so weapon choice is simpler. I got my required number of kills with them so I could level up that skill which makes the weapon even better.

However, ultimately you'll find a lot of missions early on that don't require any combat at all, but you still get XP and so you can level up.

[jztemple2]

I did a Constellation Mission Board mission to survey a rock planet. No flora or fauna, just some resource to scan and three traits to find. Still took a couple of hours, but of course that also involved visiting a couple of pirate bases, exploring caves and making a visit to a landed spacecraft. Unfortunately it was a UC Vanguard ship and the captain was on board. I did a save and experimented with shooting the captain . Sarah said she was going to leave me but I persuaded her to stay. However, I ended up with a bounty that was a lot bigger than the selling price of the ship would be, so I just reloaded the save and had a nice visit with the captain

I netted only 4K credits for the survey mission, so not really worth it in that respect, but it did generate a lot of XP, so I might think about doing some more of those.

[Blackhawk]

Three hours of sleep, and I'm so fruggin tired that it took me three hours to change one .ini file and install six simple, basic mods. This would have taken me 20 minutes any other day (ok, maybe 30 if you include reading up on them.)

But I have (in theory) turned off the lens flare, disabled the 500 splash/intro screens, fixed the FOV, made sure that achievements aren't disabled if I use mods or the console, fixed the UI so that it isn't running at 1/2 to 1/3 of my framerate (Bethesda set all of the UI files to 30FPS, making everything look choppy), and turned off the lighting 'enhancements' that make everything hazy and washed out.

And I know modding well enough to know that none of these are the types of mods that are going to screw with your save files - no scripts, not even any plugins. Those things won't appear until after the construction set is released. These are just loose texture files and interface elements - items not tied to your save in any way. In fact, unless they've changed it significantly, Bethesda's interface is basically a transparent flash file. That makes it easy for people to go in and futz with it.

[Apollo]

Well, 4 hours in and its definitely not grabbing me yet, but that could just be my Gamer Burnout Syndrome kicking in again. One thing that is annoying the hell out of me right now is the weapons. I'm getting a bad "Borderlands" vibe from all the weapons, of which there are an infinite number of variations and mods guaranteed to make choosing a weapon an almost impossible procedure. After spending a half hour looking at a vendor's weapon selection and having no idea of which weapon I should buy, I finally just quit the game. I'll be back, but I'm definitely in the "Not enjoying any aspect of this game so far" crowd. And it seems to be getting worse the longer I play...

Go do missions and kill and take the weapons that hurt you the most! I really like the grendel and marauder as solid SMG/assault rifle ballistic weapons. Eventually you will be able to build your own weapon mods but that's down the skill tree a bit, the good mods anyway.

Easier said than done. Every firefight (and this is true of every FPS I play) is chaos and I have no idea of how much damage I'm taking, who's shooting at me, etc. I just don't understand why they made all the guns vary so much in so many ways.

Well, you have a health bar so you can see the damage you are taking. And the game is very good at allowing use of cover, so minimize the number of people who can shoot at you, or hide entirely then poke out enough to shoot at just one enemy.

Use a skill point to focus on either ballistic weapons or lasers. I chose lasers and early on there is only one decent laser rifle and one decent laser pistol, so weapon choice is simpler. I got my required number of kills with them so I could level up that skill which makes the weapon even better.

However, ultimately you'll find a lot of missions early on that don't require any combat at all, but you still get XP and so you can level up.

My problem isn't with surviving combat (at least not so far) it's being unable to make informed choices about weapons. I used to love this sort of complexity in my games but now, with no manuals or strategy guides, it's a real hassle to figure out things in this game. I don't think I have gone more than ten minutes without alt-tabbing out to look up how to do something online.

But this is not a problem with the game. Every game has things I don't like. But with my Gamer Burnout Syndrome, what would have been a small annoyance ten years ago becomes a frustrating problem that makes me quit games within a few hours of beginning. If this game had come out in 2010 I'd be staying up all night playing and wouldn't have time to even post here. But games, books, movies, etc. never draw me in anymore. Not really sure why either. But, to be clear once again, THIS IS AN AWESOME GAME! I can't really get into it only because I can't really get into anything anymore.

But I do really hate when games use this sort of weapon system.

[Punisher]

Question about surveying. Over on the lower right in the window it says "deciduous forest (90%)". What does the 90% mean? Overall I've surveyed the planet to 92%, so it the 90% tied into that 92% or is it something else.

By the way, I'm missing three damn animals and it's driving me crazy

Yes I think it is the progress specific to that biome. If you targeted another biome you would likely see a lower number. I don't think I've ever looked at that screen after visiting a planet once.

From a time vs money/xp standpoint. I think you are wasting time, but if you enjoy it, that's what counts.

I just wanted to do one complete survey, just for the experience, but at this rate I'm not going to do it often. It's that elusive last few critters that are a nuisance. I supposed that there will be a wiki soon of where to find which flora and fauna on each planet

I think a lit of that is randomly generated so not sure how much guides will help.
I just did a 100% survery. It's easy. Just make sure you go to a lifeless moon with 1 biome!

[jztemple2]

Probably a dumb question, but how do you build a ship from scratch? The guy at the Spaceport let's me upgrade the main components. In the build menu I can remove and add components, but how do I start with a blank canvas and make one from scratch?

[Grifman]

Probably a dumb question, but how do you build a ship from scratch? The guy at the Spaceport let's me upgrade the main components. In the build menu I can remove and add components, but how do I start with a blank canvas and make one from scratch?

I don't think you can do that. Just take ship, remove everything and start anew.

[Octavious]

This game makes me feel dumb or I'm just missing tutorials somehow. Everything I need to do I'm having to Google. Like right now I had to Google how to dock. Was this explained or you? Am I daft?

[naednek]

This game makes me feel dumb or I'm just missing tutorials somehow. Everything I need to do I'm having to Google. Like right now I had to Google how to dock. Was this explained or you? Am I daft?

I'm pretty sure it was explained, but during a mission. Might not have explained when you are off doing your own thing

[jztemple2]

This game makes me feel dumb or I'm just missing tutorials somehow. Everything I need to do I'm having to Google. Like right now I had to Google how to dock. Was this explained or you? Am I daft?

I'm pretty sure it was explained, but during a mission. Might not have explained when you are off doing your own thing

How to dock was mentioned so quickly I missed it as well, I needed a YouTube video myself.

[Octavious]

Ya it was the next mission that tells you how to do it. Anyways it's starting to jive. I think the intro is just not done very well for me which isn't that big of a deal.

[Skinypupy]

Finished the first planet after the intro and my main impression is that it feels like everything in this game is just wildly unintuitive. Maybe it's just me, but I'm left scratching my head trying to figure out the simplest things.

Game told me to press F to equip my scanner to scan local fauna. I press F, point it at a plant that's glowing blue, and…it shoots a laser at it. Is that what's supposed to happen? Because the "Scanned fauna" in my HUD still says 0/3.

Game told me to pick a lock and threw me into some minigame, then doesn't even make a token attempt to try and explain it. I spent about 15 minutes futzing with it, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how it works.

Killed the boss and the game told me to press R to navigate directly to the next mission. I select the mission and it tells me I need to activate my Grav Drive. I finally figure out how to toggle over to the Grav Drive (at least I assume that's what the GRV in the HUD means), I push the button to activate it, and...nothing happens. Am I out of fuel? Pressing the wrong key? Didn't input the commands correctly? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I fat finger something and open up the console commands prompt. I get a message telling me that certain commands will disable achievements, then no matter what I do, I can't exit out of the console. Click on the "OK" button in the warning window, nothing. Hit Esc, nothing. Type "Exit", nothing. I gave up and just killed the game in Task Manager because I couldn't figure out how to close it. Pretty sure this one was a bug.

Game looks nice, I suppose, but I came away from my first couple hours mostly just annoyed and frustrated.

[Smoove_B]

Game looks nice, I suppose, but I came away from my first couple hours mostly just annoyed and frustrated.

I had exactly the same impression; I'm not 14 hours in and it's much, much better. I don't know why they did the intro the way they did or why some things are so dense and unintuitive, but eventually it will start to make sense and you'll start to get into it. Well, that's the hope, anyway.

There are so many moving parts - so many *things* to do that are really much deeper than you might initially think. It's very, very easy to get overwhelmed, at least, it was for me. Just try to stick to the main story for a bit and they do a good job of giving you most of the basics.

[jztemple2]

I fat finger something and open up the console commands prompt. I get a message telling me that certain commands will disable achievements, then no matter what I do, I can't exit out of the console. Click on the "OK" button in the warning window, nothing. Hit Esc, nothing. Type "Exit", nothing. I gave up and just killed the game in Task Manager because I couldn't figure out how to close it. Pretty sure this one was a bug.

I do have a gripe though, the damn console key is too easy to hit. For some reason I don't even need to hit Shift+"`", just the "`" is triggering the console and once it pops up the message about how cheats might kill my accomplishments, I can't remove the message to I have to restart the game. It's annoying but I've only done it a couple of time in the game. And apparently that key can't be rebound. I'll have to ask on the forums how to unbind it.

Close the console first by hitting the back tick again, THEN you can close the achievement popup.