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

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't think making a game playable without quest markers is "extremely hard", it's mostly just not a priority.

In the interview, Tim and Leonard seem kind of surprised that this is even an issue. They're sort of puzzled/intrigued by the idea that people would want to be able turn quest markers off. Maybe "exploration" is something they never thought about or cared about all that much.

the amount of people who complain about having the feature to turn it off is much, much bigger than the amount of people who actually do turn it off

 

[Kem0sabe]

I very much doubt people turn off markers.

 

[Strange Fellow]

In games with quest markers, turning them off won't make things any better. In games without quest markers, implementing them would make things worse.

 

[Prime Junta]

the amount of people who complain about having the feature to turn it off is much, much bigger than the amount of people who actually do turn it off

Because a game designed for quest markers is bloody frustrating to play without them.

The other way around would be fine - design it without them and put them in at the last minute, with an option to switch them on.

 

[imweasel]

Cover up the minimap with a Post-it note and write "Cain and Boyarsky are assholes" on it. Problem solved.

 

[Roguey]

It's a middle-budget cheapstake RPG that will be shorter than KOTOR 2 and is being made by a skeleton team that already went through 2 rounds of massive cuts just so they can launch in time.

Mid-budget sure but skeleton team what

It's not going to be isometric dude. Obsidian have a 100 person team working on this, it's an AAA game.

Pillars and Tyranny have always been side gigs. The main part of the company was continually engaged in larger projects - South Park until 2014, then Armored Warfare until 2017, and now this. RPG players just didn't really notice because they didn't care about those games.

Skyrim and Fallout 4 were made by teams of roughly 100 people. Obsidian has different priorities.

Edit: https://www.privatedivision.com/wp-...bsidianentertainment_team_final_1920x1080.jpg I count roughly 70 people here and this wasn't even all of em (Patel, Starks, and Dollarhyde hadn't joined up yet for example).

 

[BEvers]

We may hate them, but if you want to sell a lot of copies, as Take-Two surely does, they are an expected feature that casuals can’t live without—or at least, they don’t believe they can live without them.

Didn't stop Subnautica from becoming an outsized commercial success. If you can offer them someplace interesting to explore, "casuals" seem perfectly fine without quest markers.

 

[Infinitron]

Skyrim and Fallout 4 were made by teams of roughly 100 people. Obsidian has different priorities.

It's true that TOW isn't a skeleton team but of course Bethesda can do more with less because they have Gamebryo.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's a middle-budget cheapstake RPG that will be shorter than KOTOR 2 and is being made by a skeleton team that already went through 2 rounds of massive cuts just so they can launch in time.

Yet it needs quest markers?

Look, I get quest markers in big open-world games. They are a lot more work to do without them. But a comparatively compact hub-and-spoke game? Pure retardation.

Exactly because it's a compact hub I seriously doubt people will actually bother turning them off because it won't make much of a difference anyway. It's not an exploration focused game in a first place so what are you losing exactly by having a marker?

I don't think making a game playable without quest markers is "extremely hard"

Probably not, but "playable" is not a quality standard a prestigious forum of RPG enthusiasts should accept. Haven't we learned through Kickstarter era that adding half-assed features just to check some boxes is a waste of time?

If people are losing their shit about markers, I'm assuming the kind of gameplay they have in mind is one where exploration through clues and environment is one of the major gameplay hooks. And that can be great fun if done right, but it's definitely damn hard, which is why few of these games actually exist.

Like I said, in a hardcore isometric RPG I fully expect navigation without quest markers. All the backgrounds are hand-painted anyway, and you see the world through a wider lens. "Turn west near a rock shaped like a donut" is trivial to do and fun for the player to navigate. But when you have 3D with its limited FOV and semi-realistic graphics, that's entirely different bag of dicks.

 

[Prime Junta]

Exactly because it's a compact hub I seriously doubt people will actually bother turning them off because it won't make much of a difference anyway. It's not an exploration focused game in a first place so what are you losing exactly by having a marker?

The joy and satisfaction of discovery.

Some of the most memorable moments in VtM:B were about simple moments of discovery, when the world made sense. Mercurio needed morphine. Where could I find some? That clinic, maybe...? Or tracking down the cult of plague bearers, figuring out where a terrified TV producer had hid, and so on. Quest markers would have ruined that for me. It would have turned an investigation into mechanically jumping through hoops like a trained circus dog.

But I guess this is one of those things that you either get, or not.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Exactly because it's a compact hub I seriously doubt people will actually bother turning them off because it won't make much of a difference anyway. It's not an exploration focused game in a first place so what are you losing exactly by having a marker?

The joy and satisfaction of discovery.

Some of the most memorable moments in VtM:B were about simple moments of discovery, when the world made sense. Mercurio needed morphine. Where could I find some? That clinic, maybe...? Or tracking down the cult of plague bearers, figuring out where a terrified TV producer had hid, and so on. Quest markers would have ruined that for me. It would have turned an investigation into mechanically jumping through hoops like a trained circus dog.

But I guess this is one of those things that you either get, or not.

maybe they're wary of making another commercial failure which is why they aren't copying mechanics from previous commercial failures

 

[Roguey]

It's true that TOW isn't a skeleton team but of course Bethesda can do more with less because they have Gamebryo.

ELEX was made by a core team of 25 (30-40 adding non-core) and had quest markers off by default. Looking forward to the ELEX-Outer Worlds wars.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't even have to play it to know outer world has better combat, so it's already in the lead.

 

[Infinitron]

It's true that TOW isn't a skeleton team but of course Bethesda can do more with less because they have Gamebryo.

ELEX was made by a core team of 25 (30-40 adding non-core) and had quest markers off by default. Looking forward to the ELEX-Outer Worlds wars.

I'm not talking about quest markers but the various other features that might be missing in TOW.

My understanding is that Piranha Bytes also have their Gothic/Risen engine that they've been using for years. Obsidian had to twist Unreal into something usable for an RPG.

 

[Roguey]

Obsidian had to twist Unreal into something usable for an RPG.

Perhaps they should have dusted off their Alpha Protocol code.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Exactly because it's a compact hub I seriously doubt people will actually bother turning them off because it won't make much of a difference anyway. It's not an exploration focused game in a first place so what are you losing exactly by having a marker?

The joy and satisfaction of discovery.

Some of the most memorable moments in VtM:B were about simple moments of discovery, when the world made sense. Mercurio needed morphine. Where could I find some? That clinic, maybe...? Or tracking down the cult of plague bearers, figuring out where a terrified TV producer had hid, and so on. Quest markers would have ruined that for me. It would have turned an investigation into mechanically jumping through hoops like a trained circus dog.

But I guess this is one of those things that you either get, or not.

My closet is harder to navigate that any hub world I ever seen, but I do not feel joy and satisfaction when I find fresh pair of socks.

Perhaps I've finally become comfortably numb.

 

[Egosphere]

https://www.gameinformer.com/video-...nswering-the-outer-worlds-lingering-questions

Sounds a bit like Mass Effect tbh

 

[AwesomeButton]

Augmented reality is something that would be completely feasible in this setting.
You're discussing something that exists right now — e.g., Microsoft Hololens.

Would it make sense for the player to have an AR-providing device though? It would be a nice touch if at some point in the game you can find such an item, and equip it, like you can equip the GPS in Arma and it will provide a GPS map. Bonus points if there is some humorous exchange or comments associated with the item as a wink to the player.

quest markers -> follow the arrow -> sleepwalk through the game
no quest markers -> pay attention to world and details -> better immersion

Here is someone who will have great fun playing Witcher 3 with quest markers turned off.

 

[Trashos]

In the interview, Tim and Leonard seem kind of surprised that this is even an issue. They're sort of puzzled/intrigued by the idea that people would want to be able turn quest markers off. Maybe "exploration" is something they never thought about or cared about all that much.

In their previous games, there is often not much hand holding while exploring. Arcanum is often the exact opposite of a quest marker (streets have names etc). Yeah, apparently they looked surprised in the interview, but it doesn't make sense based on their CVs. This is definitely something they have cared about in the past.

 

[Duraframe300]

I don't think making a game playable without quest markers is "extremely hard", it's mostly just not a priority.

In the interview, Tim and Leonard seem kind of surprised that this is even an issue. They're sort of puzzled/intrigued by the idea that people would want to be able turn quest markers off. Maybe "exploration" is something they never thought about or cared about all that much.

What? No they are not.

They mention that it was something they talked about early on, Leonard mentions hes interested in the idea. Ditto Tim who doesn’t seem to have something against it at all.

They are literary just puzzled because they haven’t thought about it in a while and Leonard is reprehensive because of 3D and because he hasn’t checked if its possible/fun with the current design.

I swear this thread at the moment

 

[Fairfax]

Obsidian had to twist Unreal into something usable for an RPG.

As if it was somewhat unsuitable for an RPG. Plenty of RPGs use UE4, and many others are being developed with it.

 

[Infinitron]

Obsidian had to twist Unreal into something usable for an RPG.

As if it was somewhat unsuitable for an RPG. Plenty of RPGs use UE4, and many others are being developed with it.

Yeah but Obsidian can't steal their code so it's still work that needs to be done. It's a matter of time investment not technical difficulty.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Obsidian had to twist Unreal into something usable for an RPG.

As if it was somewhat unsuitable for an RPG. Plenty of RPGs use UE4, and many others are being developed with it.

Yeah but Obsidian can't steal their code

They could steal InXile's code.






































Oh god please no.

 

[redactir]

About the Quest Marker stuff:

It's handy for debugging because you can quickly find the content you want to test. Or identify if the content isn't where it's suppose to be located. For example marker leads to wrong room or there's no npc there when there should be.
It may also be for the other team members more than it is for Tim Cain or Leonard.

Still it's not surprisingly devs can get stuck focusing on the content they know is interesting to them. So they probably end up only going to places the markers sent them to anyway.

War, war never changes? Debugging, debugging never changes.

The other form of gameplay is all that stuff that is found when just wandering the world, not something handed out simply because you beat the previous quest.

This is where we run into our concern with Cainyarksi. Is there Side Quest content to find ourselves? Do these require quest markers to find (hard to believe a game design that bad from them)?
Do the Side Quests force quest markers on the user too?

 

[Yosharian]

Debugging doesn't mean you have to design your game, or quests, around quest markers.

I'm not even entirely opposed to Quest Markers in some cases. It's a pain in the arse tracking down NPCs for quests sometimes. It's still better to be able to ask a guard and have him say 'oh yeah McBeard the dwarven blacksmith is always in his shop at this time', or 'the blacksmith? He'll be at the tavern at this hour, I expect', though.

But having inanimate objects, or dungeon-quest locations, with a magic floating quest marker? Just, no.