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

[Nano]

even though the game aged terribly because of its realism

Seriously? Alpha Protocol still looks fine. There are a lot of games from that era that look a lot worse.

 

[Roguey]

Compare faces and their expressions especially in dialogue to alpha protocol and it is a downgrade, which is impressive.

AP used expensive mocap (dumb Feargus even built a room for it), TOW very likely uses FaceFX since they don't have the budget for mocap (among other things).

 

[Nano]

Watching the video. The robot intimidation bit is awesome.

 

[Infinitron]

Archived:



Gameplay begins here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/438504486?t=05h14m27s

 

[Duraframe300]

Watching the video. The robot intimidation bit is awesome.

I do like the thought put into it (even if it is a bit too gamey). The three possible get out of jail free cards mixing with harder and harder skill checks sounds interesting to work with depending on execution/higher difficulties.

 

[Infinitron]

Now on YouTube:



Gameplay begins here: https://youtu.be/lsSubs6uDpQ?t=269

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Brian talking over the gameplay footage was a crime against my auditory nerves.

That said, the latest footage is so much better than that new trailer. The faces look better, the lip-synching is much improved, the combat looks a hell of a lot better, and so does the color palette. When they were just walking around the wilderness on Monarch with the sandstorm (or was it snow?), it looked gorgeous. Maybe some of that’s because it was night, but probably they’ve iterated on this stuff since the trailer was put together.

They need to fire whoever made the trailer.

I really liked the dialogue from Catherine and the silence of the pigs guy. I’m guessing some of you think it’s cringey, but that stuff felt like classic Cainarsky to me. Tim and Leonard have an absurdist ethos and it’s working for me here, just like it worked for me in Fallout and Arcanum.

Given the way it’s being marketed, I think we should judge The Outer Worlds by the yardstick of New Vegas. From what I saw in that gameplay footage, I’m optimistic. The combat certainly looks better than F:NV, although that’s a low bar. The quest design might be better, too.

You can: infiltrate the pig factory via the sewers with stealth and lockpick, infiltrate it via the front door with the disguise system and some dialogue skills, just shoot your way in, sneak to the control room and reprogram the robots to attack the workforce, get on the intercom to scare the workers into leaving, and I think you can also release the cysty pigs to create a distraction or dig up dirt on the factory’s financials via hacking the computer system. You can then resolve the quest in multiple ways: kill the factory owner, kill the woman who initially hired you, convince them to work together. Maybe more, but that’s what was obvious.

I don’t expect TOW to be better than F:NV, but it really wouldn’t shock me if it is. TOW isn’t saddled with gamebryo or Bethesda’s butchered version of the Fallout ruleset. And every time I hear Leonard speak, I have more confidence that he and Tim are vastly superior to Sawyer as game directors.

I really hope they release that gameplay footage without anyone talking over it, because it’s the best advertisement for TOW we’ve seen so far.

Unbelievers, repent. The prophet of the dumpsterfire leads you astray now that the age of the dumpsterfire has ended.

 

[Quillon]

And every time I hear Leonard speak,

He's too confident that the game's awesome. We'll see.

Its too inconsistent so far; first gameplay was good, pax gameplay was bad, e3 trailer was bad but this last one was good...

 

[FreeKaner]

Unbelievers, repent. The prophet of the dumpsterfire leads you astray now that the age of the dumpsterfire has ended.

I have nothing against Tim Cain and Boyarsky. The last footage looks good and I want this game to be good, it is just. I expected better somehow. Especially because of the setting in particular. I am not getting the late 19th century Robber barons and western frontier vibe. I also wanted whatever game they made to be more urban like VTMB. This just looks like New Vegas but in space and the retro in retrofuturism is 50 years back. Not very convincingly either.

Dumpsterfire is purely Sawyer's creation. It will reign in any project Sawyer leads.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

And every time I hear Leonard speak,

He's too confident that the game's awesome. We'll see.

Its too inconsistent so far; first gameplay was good, pax gameplay was bad, e3 trailer was bad but this last one was good...

They're iterating! The gameplay we saw today was from last thursday's build, which tells me that it's obviously improving with time.

Unbelievers, repent. The prophet of the dumpsterfire leads you astray now that the age of the dumpsterfire has ended.

I have nothing against Tim Cain and Boyarsky. The last footage looks good and I want this game to be good, it is just. I expected better somehow. Especially because of the setting in particular. I am not getting the late 19th century Robber barons and western frontier vibe. I also wanted whatever game they made to be more urban like VTMB. This just looks like New Vegas but in space and the retro in retrofuturism is 50 years back. Not very convincingly either.

Dumpsterfire is purely Sawyer's creation. It will reign in any project Sawyer leads.

I got a western frontier vibe from the town in today's gameplay, and especially the saloon. If the urban footage we saw last time is seeing similar improvements, you might get more of what you're hoping for. I don't know, I assume the robber baron stuff is in there, we've seen maybe an hour worth of gameplay at most and I'm guessing the stuff you want to see would be spoilery.

 

[Jarpie]

I don't think it's really the quality of the faces that is the issue here. The faces are fine. I think what's really setting people off is the game's color scheme. In terms of their colors, the "photorealistic" and the "stylized" images in Cyberwhale's post look more similar to each other than either does to The Outer Worlds image.

Like I said before, if they wanted to make colorful game, and if they'd have any sense of style or taste, they could've easily modeled the aesthetics after the technicolor films of the 40s and 50s with a very rich and vibrant colors, especially if they want to emulate the western films set in the frontiers, which they seem to be doing.

 

[Duraframe300]

I’m guessing some of you think it’s cringey, but that stuff felt like classic Cainarsky to me. Tim and Leonard have an absurdist ethos and it’s working for me here, just like it worked for me in Fallout and Arcanum.

Agreed, considering this was written by Megan Starks it shows that Leonards statement of directing his writers and editing all dialog wasn't just hot air.
Hopefully Obsdians new writers can take what they learned on this project over into their other games.
Also hopefully Leonard doesn't leave Obsidian after Outer Worlds.
He's our only hope.

 

[Duraframe300]

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Agreed, considering this was written by Megan Starks it shows that Leonards statement of directing his writers and editing all dialog wasn't just hot air.

This was written by the magnificent Megan Starks!? I’ve always said she doesn’t get enough credit and just needs some halfway decent direction to do quality work. She worked with Tim on Wildstar, which I think is why she leapfrogged the other writers to seemingly become Leonard’s deputy on this. Although maybe she’s just the only narrative designer to talk to the press because she’s the most articulate and photogenic.

 

[Tigranes]

Unbelievers, repent. The prophet of the dumpsterfire leads you astray now that the age of the dumpsterfire has ended.

I have nothing against Tim Cain and Boyarsky. The last footage looks good and I want this game to be good, it is just. I expected better somehow. Especially because of the setting in particular. I am not getting the late 19th century Robber barons and western frontier vibe. I also wanted whatever game they made to be more urban like VTMB. This just looks like New Vegas but in space and the retro in retrofuturism is 50 years back. Not very convincingly either.

Dumpsterfire is purely Sawyer's creation. It will reign in any project Sawyer leads.

This is how I feel, though I don't think I'm super pessimistic. The first teasers hinted at the robber barons, belle epoque feel that would have been an absolutely marvelous addition to the RPG landscape - instead it looks like a little bit of that mixed in with a lot of weird quasi-Fallout quasi-every-other-game soup.

I am still excited by the 'take an older historical slice of capitalistic sentimentality and extrapolate it', i.e. not just copying Fallout but applying its method to a different thing, and also resonating with what The Colony Ship is doing in its own different way. (Someone before posted "oh rah rah capitalism bad that's so cliche", but that's missing the point - though I certainly agree the whole 'PC arrives to shake up the whole place" schtick is annoying.)

But it's discouraging to see such a soupy washed out hodge podge of aesthetic style in the footage, and since it's hard to get an extensive sense of the setting, characters or plot at the moment, visual style is all we have to go by. I do think there's some hope for it, and certainly I'm one of those that would dearly love a new NV, it's just they're not showing us particularly great tasting previews.

 

[Yosharian]

I’m guessing some of you think it’s cringey, but that stuff felt like classic Cainarsky to me. Tim and Leonard have an absurdist ethos and it’s working for me here, just like it worked for me in Fallout and Arcanum.

Agreed, considering this was written by Megan Starks it shows that Leonards statement of directing his writers and editing all dialog wasn't just hot air.
Hopefully Obsdians new writers can take what they learned on this project over into their other games.
Also hopefully Leonard doesn't leave Obsidian after Outer Worlds.
He's our only hope.

Which part are we talking about, specifically?

 

[Quillon]

lol, the guy clearly knows all the answers from the demo presentation, still asks them just to have done an interview for the game

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Which part are we talking about, specifically?

Looks like she did pretty much everything in the latest footage: the town at the beginning and the pig plant at the end. So both Catherine and creepy pig dude and possibly the robots and guards who accost you when your disguise machine runs out of juice.

 

[AwesomeButton]

This looked like gay speed dating. "Can we romance companions...? <ucncomftortable laugh>"

 

[Yosharian]

Which part are we talking about, specifically?

Looks like she did pretty much everything in the latest footage: the town at the beginning and the pig plant at the end. So both Catherine and creepy pig dude and possibly the robots and guards who accost you when your disguise machine runs out of juice.

This one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsSubs6uDpQ

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

But it's discouraging to see such a soupy washed out hodge podge of aesthetic style in the footage, and since it's hard to get an extensive sense of the setting, characters or plot at the moment, visual style is all we have to go by. I do think there's some hope for it, and certainly I'm one of those that would dearly love a new NV, it's just they're not showing us particularly great tasting previews.

I feel like we’d have a better sense of some of this stuff if Brian Heins hadn’t talked over all the goddamned dialogue in the new footage.

 

[AwesomeButton]

instead it looks like a little bit of that mixed in with a lot of weird quasi-Fallout quasi-every-other-game soup.

I agree but I think this may be a distorted impression because of what they emphasize on when they demonstrate the game.

 

[Terenty]

This was written by the magnificent Megan Starks!? I’ve always said she doesn’t get enough credit and just needs some halfway decent direction to do quality work. She worked with Tim on Wildstar, which I think is why she leapfrogged the other writers to seemingly become Leonard’s deputy on this. Although maybe she’s just the only narrative designer to talk to the press because she’s the most articulate and photogenic.

What was so great about the writing in this demo? This Catherine character didnt say anything witty just an exposition dump for your mission and her voice was cringy like someone tried really hard to sound raspy and cool but it didnt work at all.

Companions quips and comments were dumb too with zero charisma to their voices.

Where did you find good writing there?

Compare these characters and voice work to Fallout 1 and Arcanum, night and day

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

What was so great about the writing in this demo? This Catherine character didnt say anything witty just an exposition dump for your mission and her voice was cringy like someone tried really hard to sound raspy and cool but it didnt work at all

Watch it again and try to tune out Brian. Catherine had some good lines and she was doing a lot more than giving you a quest. Also just a bunch of great turns of phrase. Then go listen to the guys at the pig plant, especially the guy at the very end. I didn’t mind the voice acting, but that’s beside the point—we’re talking about Megan’s writing.

I don’t think she wrote the companion barks, unless she wrote those particular companions.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Glowed Up