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The Outer Worlds Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

The Real Fanboy
Joined
Oct 8, 2018
Messages
1,121
Yeah, it's also going to be mainstage promoted at E3 by xbox. It's going to be a hit!
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Fallout 3

Citing Fallout 3 for writing inspiration...

:what:

It won awards for its writing.
The lowest common denominator thinks it has amazing writing.
Obsidian wants to be Bethesda now.

Put two and two together and consider that even if she was not part of the lowest common denominator herself it would still make sense to suck Bethesda's cock like that.
But the thing is that she most likely is honest, because she is, like most people working in the gaming industry, not only Obsidian, part of the lowest common denominator herself and she has shit taste and will like shit and whatever she is told she is supposed to like.
 
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Oct 8, 2018
Messages
1,121
Fallout 3

Citing Fallout 3 for writing inspiration...

:what:

It won awards for its writing.
The lowest common denominator thinks it has amazing writing.
Obsidian wants to be Bethesda now.

Put two and two together and consider that even if she was not part of the lowest common denominator herself it would still make sense to suck Bethesda's cock like that.
But the thing is that she most likely is honest, because she is, like most people working in the gaming industry, not only Obsidian, part of the lowest common denominator herself and she has shit taste and will like shit and whatever she is told she is supposed to like.

giphy-downsized.gif
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
Starks graduated summa cum laude, so she's not a brainlet as I originally thought, just incredibly normie in her entertainment choices. She has the drive and the ability to write better than she does with proper direction (fabulously optimistic).
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
While I don't hate Fallout 3 with the power of a thousands suns like some here do, I do hate the writing. It's always baffled me that some people praised it, relatively smart people with industry experience. I guess they found stuff like Little Lamplight kitschy and amusing, rather than brain-dead. I dunno. At least you have to admit the Enclave and "President" were poorly written right? I guess not, I dunno.
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Well, look at this:

maxresdefault.jpg


I mean, shit, a kid pretending to be an adult, with chubby chicks and an oversized helmet? That dislikes adults?
It's made especially to tickle the lowest common denominator. At this point it doesn't even matter what they say, all Bethesda's audience will think is "OMG soooooo cutttttttte!!!"

You have to give it to Bethesda, they do know what Joe McStupid likes.
 

Kyl Von Kull

The Night Tripper
Patron
Joined
Jun 15, 2017
Messages
3,152
Location
Jamrock District
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
While I don't hate Fallout 3 with the power of a thousands suns like some here do, I do hate the writing. It's always baffled me that some people praised it, relatively smart people with industry experience. I guess they found stuff like Little Lamplight kitschy and amusing, rather than brain-dead. I dunno. At least you have to admit the Enclave and "President" were poorly written right? I guess not, I dunno.

In defense of the multitalented Megan Starks, the interview where she namechecks Fallout 3 was not about this game, it was about inspirations for Tyranny, and her answer was sandwiched between narrative lead Matt MacLean and Paul Kirsch talking about much better stuff. Maclean mentions The Black Company, Myth: The Fallen Lords, the Fallout Series (especially New Vegas), and especially real world history—fascism, drug cartels, imperialism. Everybody from Dulles overthrowing democratic regimes on behalf of The United Fruit company and British Iranian Oil, to Kim Jong-Il and Qin Shi Huang.

Then there’s Kirsch: “I take some inspiration from Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone series—not as much from the sword & sorcery angle as the impression that the protagonist comes from a context so inherently dark that cruelty and atrocity are the benchmarks for normalcy. If doing something unspeakably awful is presented in a casual tone, chances are fair I’m tipping my hat to Elric.

Another of our big themes is power and how it gets wielded. We take a lot of inspiration from Soylent Green—specifically the scene where Charleton Heston is supposed to be investigating a murder and he spends most of the time looting the victim’s upper-class apartment. He’s operating within the rights that his station affords him, he’s being a huge dick about it, but he doesn’t spend a moment questioning the ethics behind this behavior. That’s a good roadmap for understanding how the Fatebinder expresses their authority.”

Between them you have mainstream pop culture Megan:

Megan Starks, Narrative Designer: I really like the dark humor in many of the Orcs' lines in the Lord of the Rings movies. I also like to think a bit about some different bad guy groups like the Governor or the people running Terminus in The Walking Dead, the raiders in Fallout 3, the reavers in Firefly, US prohibition-era gangsters, or hired gun type characters (whether it be a spy like Brock Samson from the Venture Bros or a sellsword like Bronn from Game of Thrones).

For examples of good people, or just normal people—both good and not-so-good, caught in situations they don't have much control over (you do what you have to protect your country and/or to survive)—I looked at various war movies for inspiration. If these influences seem like they're all over the place, it's because they definitely are. It's good to consume a lot of different types of narratives and character portrayals and blend them together new and interesting ways, in my opinion.”

This is a disappointing answer, sure, but “the raiders in Fallout 3” is much less disturbing than “Fallout 3.” There are hardly any raiders you can talk to, most of what you know about them comes from their barks, them trying to kill you, or weird environmental storytelling, which is the only thing Bethesda’s even halfway good at. The takeaway from this is that the Megan Starks of 2016 needed to play/read/watch some stuff that’s actually good so she’d have better sources to draw on.

And, hey, wouldn’t you know, Leonard Boyarsky said he had some trouble getting the writers for TOW on the same page, which is why he told Megan Starks to watch Brazil, and it blew her mind: “oh my god,” she said, “what am I getting myself into?” IMO, that seems like the right way to handle someone who knows how to write, but doesn’t consistently know what to write.
 

cosmicray

Savant
Joined
Jan 20, 2019
Messages
436
Why is it a big deal that Boyarsky sent Sparks to watch Brazil? Project lead asked writers to watch it, so what? It's a well-known film anyway. Although, to be fair, seeing what she references he should have locked her for a whole week to watch other movies.
 
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Oct 8, 2018
Messages
1,121
Twitch streamers are visiting Obsidian for The Outer Worlds!!!!!



Unless she was there to voice act in the game lol! I remember Kate Dollarhyde tweeted about loving when va’s laugh at your writing a week or two ago
ODdwGXo.png
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
In defense of the multitalented Megan Starks, the interview where she namechecks Fallout 3 was not about this game, it was about inspirations for Tyranny, and her answer was sandwiched between narrative lead Matt MacLean and Paul Kirsch talking about much better stuff.

Note that Fallout 3 is listed in her favorite games:
http://www.fictivate.com/
I see that she has recently added NV to the list of her favorites. A few months ago when I last checked, FO3 was on her list (first no less) and NV wasn't. I had commented on this here.

I get the feeling that she really loves FO3 writing.
 

Goral

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
May 4, 2008
Messages
3,552
Location
Poland
Starks graduated (...) cum (...).
Informative.

On a serious note, just because she performed well at her studies in some below average University on some non-prominent and useless field doesn't mean she can write.

Her MFA was in creative writing. On paper, an ideal candidate to provide writing services.
The way I see it more often than not people who specifically study to become writers aren't good writers. Same goes for journalists who study journalism.
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
My impression is that grognards would rather work on lower budget games and make fewer compromises for the mass market. Sawyer himself has confirmed that he and Bobby Null are the biggest systems nerds at Obsidian, and that most other Obsidian designers can't even play Pillars of Eternity on hard.
My impression is that they would never hire grognards since they don't enjoy complex mechanics themselves or are afraid to hurt sales.
 
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Kyl Von Kull

The Night Tripper
Patron
Joined
Jun 15, 2017
Messages
3,152
Location
Jamrock District
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
In defense of the multitalented Megan Starks, the interview where she namechecks Fallout 3 was not about this game, it was about inspirations for Tyranny, and her answer was sandwiched between narrative lead Matt MacLean and Paul Kirsch talking about much better stuff.

Note that Fallout 3 is listed in her favorite games:
http://www.fictivate.com/
I see that she has recently added NV to the list of her favorites. A few months ago when I last checked, FO3 was on her list (first no less) and NV wasn't. I had commented on this here.

I get the feeling that she really loves FO3 writing.

I’m 99% sure Fallout 3 was her first exposure to the franchise. The Fallout universe is a great setting and if you haven’t played the originals, it’s harder to see why 3 was so goddamn terrible and disappointing. We don’t give Bethesda any credit for the stuff Black Isle came up with—we often hate them for botching the execution—but how is she supposed to tell the difference?

Besides, even people who love Fallout 3 don’t love it for the writing. No one loves Bethesda games for the writing.

Obsidian has a bunch of talented young writers who hadn’t been exposed to lots of stuff we take for granted. Sawyer is apparently awful at convincing people to consume the right media. Makes sense—who would listen to bicycle guy about this stuff? Based on everything we’ve heard, Tim & Leonard sound like much better evangelists for quality entertainment. I believe that will make a difference.
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
Obsidian has a bunch of talented young writers who hadn’t been exposed to lots of stuff we take for granted.
How can they be talented writers if they only write drivel? Does it make any sense to talk about talented cRPG writers that never have been exposed to the classics of the medium?

Tim & Leonard sound like much better evangelists for quality entertainment. I believe that will make a difference.
You must be living in a cave to believe that Tim Cain still has somehting interesting to offer. Dude was trying to convice developers that FO is too complicated and we should replace stats with geometric shapes. He is done, finished.

EDIT: when pretentious retards like Prima Cunta and Kyl Von Kull give you negative ratings you know you are completely right.
 
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Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
DualShockers interviews from April: https://www.dualshockers.com/the-outer-worlds-interview-tim-cain-leonard-boyarsky-fallout/

The Outer Worlds Interview — Directors Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky Talk About Fallout’s Influence and RPG Systems
We sat down with the co-directors of Obsidian's The Outer Worlds recently to chat more about the upcoming single-player RPG.

Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds is one of the most intriguing and exciting releases of 2019. Led by some of the creators of the original Fallout, The Outer Worlds is one of the first true single-player RPGs that we’ve seen in quite a bit, separate from the mold of games-as-a-service or other multiplayer factors. The Outer Worlds seems to be exactly the kind of game that many single-player RPG enthusiasts have been wanting to see again for years.

Following The Outer Worlds’ panel last weekend at PAX East, I had the opportunity to sit down with the game’s Co-Directors Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky and talk about their latest venture. Over the course of our discussion, we chatted about Fallout’s influence on the design and world of The Outer Worlds as well as getting into the nitty-gritty with some of the game’s more unique RPG systems.

Logan: I find Obsidian to be really unique because you all are constantly switching genres it seems with almost every project you make. From first-person games like Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds to turn-based projects like South Park: The Stick of Truth, is it hard to constantly be switching things up and not sticking within one genre structure for too long? And does that ever lead to trouble during development?

Leonard Boyarsky: Well I would consider them all role-playing games, to a certain degree or another. I think it’s just what the game asks for. Tim could tell you about how they ended up with the combat in South Park becoming turn-based. Obviously, this is before our time [at Obsidian] but when they’re making sequels to established games, that’s already set up. It’s kind of like each game demands it’s own thing. We wanted to make something that was kind of a spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas or that style of game and if you’re going to do that then it has to be first-person.

L: So you mention Fallout: New Vegas here directly and I think the thing that has stood out to me the most so far about The Outer Worlds is how similar it is to Fallout. Not even in just the general RPG structure but more so the world and how it’s presented with all of the ads for various products scattered about and how characters within the world talk to one another. Is this all very intentional and trying to embrace those similarities to Fallout as much as possible?

Tim Cain: Well in a sense what I’ve told people is that’s just my humor. The fact that it came out in Fallout, it also came out in Arcanum, it’s also going to come out in this game. We have a lot of people on the team who worked on Fallout 1, 2, or New Vegas, so that’s just kind of in their DNA too.



L: You mentioned this a bit in the panel Tim, but the brands and advertisements that are scattered throughout The Outer Worlds, do those all stem from you directly to a certain degree?

TC: It’s really a blend. When Leonard was talking about it in the meeting, the first thing we talked about was setting. Once we had the setting, Leonard kind of went off and I tended to system mechanics that fit in that setting. The whole thing in that trailer what we really wanted to tell people was that if you like Fallout, especially the original ones and New Vegas, this is what you’re going to like. We’re trying to set people’s expectations.

LB: Yeah, the cool thing about Tim tackling a lot of the brand stuff is that he can just write all that stuff off all day long — the funny taglines, the over-the-top silly stuff. To me, I feel like the best stuff is where we combine on that but that was an area where we just went for that over-the-top silliness.

TC: That was very indulgent. [laughs]

L: You showed off a bit more of the companions you can have in The Outer Worlds today during the panel and it really reminded me the most of the Knights of the Old Republic games. One thing I really liked about those games was that your companions would start pushing back against you at times if they didn’t like the direction you were taking things. Will that be something that might happen in The Outer Worlds?

LB: There are story spots where that happens. We had a morale system designed but we never actually were able to implement it just because of our time constraints and budget constraints. What we decided to do instead was based on their personalities and their characters–who they are as people–that if you do this, then this companion is really going to have a problem with that. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

TC: Plus they all hang out on the ship. If you go back to the ship and you’ve done something that one of them really hates, they’ll go, “Hey, I really need to talk to you.” Then when you talk to them they might be like, “I can’t believe you did that, I’m really not happy with you.” They’ll warn you once, but if you continue to do things like that then they might tap out.



L: The flaws system is something else you both touched on a bit today during the panel and it’s something that I find fascinating. Is it weird designing a system though that players can so easily opt-out of ever even utilizing?

TC: I know I say this a lot, but I’m a huge fan of Joseph Campbell. If you read his book The Power of Myth or you watch the PBS special, he makes a big point about how heroes aren’t these perfect people. Every RPG now you start weak and then you become a god. And I’m like, that’s not the interesting thing!

I’ve been working out different designs for like twenty years and I never figured out how to do it. What clicked in my head was that we’re monitoring so much stuff in the game for achievements anyway, you can leverage that system. It knows how much damage you’ve taken of all these different types and it knows where you were when you took the damage and what type of damage it was. Why not track that and put thresholds in the game?

When you pass that threshold, just suggest, “Hey, you really like smoking these cigarettes. Do you want an addiction to them?” If you do, you get another perk and people love perks so it’s kind of like dangling the carrot. That was the thing that made it all click. And because it’s completely optional, no one can complain because you can just go, “No, I don’t want any flaws,” and just play the game like you would any other game where at the end you’re this perfect, flawless person. But I think it’s more fun if you’re flawed.

LB: As to the other part of the question about whether or not it’s hard to make stuff players aren’t going to use or see, that’s kind of the core of what we make. If you never try a toxin, you’re never going to see that content. If you don’t choose one of the companions, you’re going to miss out on all of the content that has to do with them. By the very nature of doing an RPG where we let you, within reason, do whatever you want to do, there’s going to be things you choose not to do.



L: Let’s touch on side-quests for a moment. How much will quests that you do outside of the main path then have an effect on what transpires during the main quests? Or will there be little-to-no crossover between what you do on the side with the main plot?

LB: We try to periodically reference things you’ve done in the game. It doesn’t necessarily skew it tremendously. There are a couple of spots in the game where things you’ve done in other places has an influence, but overall, they are kind of separate. We try to make it feel like the world is reactive to you doing those things so it’s not like it’s taking place in a vacuum, but it doesn’t send it off veering in a completely different direction, if that makes sense.

L: I was interested in hearing what you both think about Stadia, Google’s new streaming platform, since you’ve both been in the industry for so long. What were some of your general thoughts on what they’ve shown off so far of the technology?

TC: I think something like that is inevitable [but] I?m curious if we?re there yet.

LB: I just remember people tried to do online gaming before it was time for it. People tried to do things on the Internet just in general and everything crashed and burned. Five years later, everyone is doing it. Streaming, I remember when they first came out with streaming instead of getting Netflix discs in the mail and I was like, “Yeah, right. I?m going to watch this movie that?s buffering constantly?” Like Tim said, [streaming] will happen, it?s just who knows if it?s the right time yet.

L: Are you guys as developers excited for that to technology to come about or do you embrace it hesitantly?

LB: If you basically have a super PC somewhere that runs just as good as if it were in your house that means that we don?t have to worry so much about lower end systems. If it?s cheap enough and everybody can do that, then people aren’t kept from playing your game just because they don?t have the best and the latest console or the best and the latest PC.



L: I also have to ask about Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2 for just a moment since the sequel was just announced. Were either of you at any point consulted or asked about the project at any point? And when did you first find out it was being made?

LB: We heard rumors about it for a while but we haven’t talked to anyone who is working on it, really.

L: Is there anything else about The Outer Worlds that you haven’t talked much about that you’d like to touch on?

LB: I feel like this is a weird, unique place to be in that I don’t feel like there’s a lot of stuff that we want people to know about that we haven’t talked about that people don’t know about.

TC: I don’t see a whole lot of single-player RPGs come down. Usually, there are multiplayer or multiplayer components that factors into it. I just like that this is a pure single-player experience. Play at your own pace, play the kind of character you want, replay it and see how it varies. I just love that.

https://www.dualshockers.com/the-outer-worlds-interview-pax-east/

The Outer Worlds Interview — Developers Dive Deeper Into Systems and Design
Obsidian's Megan Starks and Charles Staples recently spoke to us more about the upcoming release of The Outer Worlds.

A few weeks back at PAX East, we interviewed the directors of The Outer Worlds–Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky–to learn more about what to expect from Obsidian’s latest RPG. The conversation we had with them was more of a broad look at the game that also touched on the roots of the project and some of the larger ideas at the project’s core.

After speaking with both Cain and Boyarsky, we also had the chance to chat with Charles Staples, the game’s Lead Designer, and Megan Starks, who is a Senior Narrative Designer on The Outer Worlds. Rather than talking more broadly about the game, we decided to chat with Megan and Charles about some more specific aspects of the game that hardcore RPG fans have been asking about.

Logan: Tim and Leonard talked a bit during the panel today about how they came up with the initial ideas for The Outer Worlds over a period of six months or so before they then began proper development on it with the rest of the team. Once they approach you guys to start working on the game, what’s the process like with them getting the rest of the team at Obsidian in-line with their vision?

Charles Staples: I remember when I first came on board, Tim and Leonard had a ton of documentation written down and like the first week was just reading all of it and [understanding] “Okay, this is what you guys are trying to do. I need to read all this stuff.” They also had referenced movies, books, and that sort of stuff so that everybody could get on the same page of the influences and inspirations that we have for this. Then it comes to us to be like “Okay, that’s what they want to do, now it’s our job to execute on this and turn this into a game.”

L: Because Tim and Leonard have been in the industry for a bit at this point and are a bit more old school, did you find working with them to be any different than other projects you’ve worked on in the past?

Megan Starks: I think the main difference I’ve noticed is that Tim and Leonard just have really smart creative instincts. So whenever they come up with an idea, it’s like spot-on where usually you kind of toss some stuff out and you need to refine it and work it into the final vision. You can be like, “Well, I really need some direction on X,” and you’ll get a very quick, really good response.

CS: Yeah, they’ve spent a lot of time thinking through everything. [laughs]



L: The flaws system was one element of The Outer Worlds I spoke to Tim and Leonard about quite a bit. I’m curious though, will flaws you acquire play into the narrative in any way or is it more of a systems-level function?

MS: It’s more of systems thing but I sneak some in. I really liked the robophobia flaw where when you talk to robots sometimes you have the dialogue option where you just scream in their face. But for the most part, it’s systems based.

CS: I think that’s a good idea for the future though.

MS: Yeah, we should add that to all of them.



L: How expansive are the environments in The Outer Worlds and how much do you encourage players to explore and pillage around?

CS: We have a pretty wide range of areas. One of our areas is massive and huge and then we have a lot of other smaller areas but those are still even decent sized where you can spend a couple hours in them. We do try to make sure that players feel rewarded any time they explore off the beaten path and that they’re not always pushed on to these sorts of things because for the players that do like exploration, that is part of the rewarding element of like, “Hey, I went in here, I found some cool storytelling and I also got rewarded with a cool new gun.”

L: Will that potential loot you find off the beaten path be static across multiple playthroughs or will it all be randomized?

CS: We do have some loot that is pre-placed and some of it in loot containers is generated off of loot lists.



L: What’s one thing you both haven’t talked about much yet with The Outer Worlds that you’d like more potential players of the game to know about?

MS: We haven’t revealed either of the two companions that I’ve written for yet. I’m always trying to catch myself before I accidentally talk about it in interviews.

CS: Yeah, there’s a lot of things that we’re not talking about that I think are going to be fun. Definitely, I think, you know, we try to make compelling stories, compelling characters, and we get excited to see how people react to the stuff that we make. I’m just really excited for the game to come out when we’re finished and see players’ reactions to it. That’s the cool thing for us, to see how people consume it and what they like about it so that we can take that experience and put it into the next game.
 

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