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

[Zombra]

CONTEMPORARY WRITER DOES SOME WORK THAT IS GOOD AND SOME WORK THAT IS LESS GOOD
SEE WRITER, p47

 

[Makabb]

This explains a lot.I now realize why the female characters look like dykes.

The artists draw what they see.

Is it she/her or he/him?

she/he

 

[Alienman]

Ugh, hype dying.

 

[Abu Antar]

I don’t use him/he on social media. I use lord/master.

 

[imweasel]

Jesus Christ, lol.

I know man. I feel like a teacher in an 8th grade creative writing class while reading these excerpts.

Ugh, hype dying.

My hype took a huge hit too. Only the classic Cain/Boyarsky humor and a good editor could save the writing in this game.

 

[Nano]

I'm too lazy to read books, so I can't form my own opinion. Chris Avellone, any chance you could explain exactly what you like about Carrie Patel's work?

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

There is only one Deity on Codex and his game is MCA. Burn in Hell heretic

MY FRIEND, I ALSO WORSHIP THE MIGHTY MCA! MAY HIS WRITING CONTINUE TO CLEANSE OUR SINS FOR DECADES TO COME!

 

[santino27]

Eh, I'm not a fan of the writing samples presented here (let alone with companions like Xoti or Kills-in-Shadows), but I'd say it's pretty easy to find examples of shitty prose in most commercial fiction these days.

 

[Roguey]

Going three for three with Dollarhyde

My mother is a scientist—an astrophysicist and an engineer. She is a clever, brilliant woman. And she has long thought, must still surely think under all those comatic layers of drug-induced sleep, that if she could gaze far enough back into time, she could figure out just where we'd gone so wrong. That's why she built the time machine.

I was born at the start of summer, of the summer—the first summer the North Pole turned to slurry. California shriveled under skies washed red with wildfire haze. Shasta Lake, the state's largest reservoir, surrendered her last drops of water. Communities too long disempowered and disenfranchised were made to reckon with a reality that scientists like my mother had warned them of for decades: this hot, dry world was their new home, and there would be no going back. Millions of people lost their jobs, their homes, their lives. Many of those remaining fled to the cities, and the cities buckled under the weight of their untold grief, their justified fury.

I’m in the outer avenues, the ocean-most edge of San Francisco, where the wind drags knives across the skin.

There is a man standing beside me at the bus stop, just he and I alone in the mist of morning. I look at my feet rather than him, but it’s really nothing personal; eyes are powerful, and the interlocking of them even more so, and it seems most men believe that when ours meet it is an invitation.
...
If Purvi could inhabit my hurts as I inhabit those of others, what would she see?

Me, in bed with someone else, and I would say, “I don’t want this. I’m sorry.” And he would say, “That’s okay. I love you.”

Me, in a bar, the weekend before my wedding. An old friend would joke, “…and even if you’re wasted, you have to fuck on your wedding night! Otherwise, what’s the point?” And she would see my partner squeeze my hand beneath the bar. But she would not see how in that moment I hate myself for not telling that friend off, for being this way, for hiding it.

Me, curled in a ball on the couch beside someone I loved. “We could have an open relationship. You could find someone else to do things I can’t,” I’d say. “No,” his response. “I only want you.”

My voice, reciting the constant thrum of dread that still beats beneath every thought: They will leave you. They will leave you. They will leave you.

I find her the least obnoxious one of the bunch which is great for her, but terrible for Obsidian.

 

[Oracsbox]

Going three for three with Dollarhyde

My mother is a scientist—an astrophysicist and an engineer. She is a clever, brilliant woman. And she has long thought, must still surely think under all those comatic layers of drug-induced sleep, that if she could gaze far enough back into time, she could figure out just where we'd gone so wrong. That's why she built the time machine.

I was born at the start of summer, of the summer—the first summer the North Pole turned to slurry. California shriveled under skies washed red with wildfire haze. Shasta Lake, the state's largest reservoir, surrendered her last drops of water. Communities too long disempowered and disenfranchised were made to reckon with a reality that scientists like my mother had warned them of for decades: this hot, dry world was their new home, and there would be no going back. Millions of people lost their jobs, their homes, their lives. Many of those remaining fled to the cities, and the cities buckled under the weight of their untold grief, their justified fury.

I’m in the outer avenues, the ocean-most edge of San Francisco, where the wind drags knives across the skin.

There is a man standing beside me at the bus stop, just he and I alone in the mist of morning. I look at my feet rather than him, but it’s really nothing personal; eyes are powerful, and the interlocking of them even more so, and it seems most men believe that when ours meet it is an invitation.
...
If Purvi could inhabit my hurts as I inhabit those of others, what would she see?

Me, in bed with someone else, and I would say, “I don’t want this. I’m sorry.” And he would say, “That’s okay. I love you.”

Me, in a bar, the weekend before my wedding. An old friend would joke, “…and even if you’re wasted, you have to fuck on your wedding night! Otherwise, what’s the point?” And she would see my partner squeeze my hand beneath the bar. But she would not see how in that moment I hate myself for not telling that friend off, for being this way, for hiding it.

Me, curled in a ball on the couch beside someone I loved. “We could have an open relationship. You could find someone else to do things I can’t,” I’d say. “No,” his response. “I only want you.”

My voice, reciting the constant thrum of dread that still beats beneath every thought: They will leave you. They will leave you. They will leave you.

I find her the least obnoxious one of the bunch which is great for her, but terrible for Obsidian.

Good God !
I had great difficulty even getting to the end of that one,it's appalling

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Why do they hire such retards?

 

[aweigh]

That is all very retarded but his use of "buckled under" as what a city did really annoyed me. Cities don't buckle.

EDIT: It's all very bad, yikes. "ocean-most" edge? Jesus christ.

EDIT 2x: Interlocking eyes

lul

 

[Mikeal]

Why do they hire such retards?

What kind of people can you hire in California?

 

[StrongBelwas]

Why do they hire such retards?

Even more after John left, we actually changed our hiring procedure to cater to Eric on Eternity, since we knew if he didn’t approve of a writer, you might as well set a torch any writer that worked with him.

 

[aweigh]

Also:

"My voice, reciting the constant thrum of dread that still beats"-- Uh, a heart beats, not a voice. Also thrumming means to make a rhythmic sound akin to a hum... which also does not beat, it is not percussive.

bah, anyway...

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Why do they hire such retards?

What kind of people can you hire in California?

I wouldn't know. Is it that bad?
There must be a bum somewhere in California who'd be thankful for (and more capable at) the job.

 

[karoliner]

Megan Starks is very capable.

Here is a detailed list of everything she’s been responsible for:

http://www.fictivate.com/game-design.html

She’s no Avellone, but judging Starks soley based on Xoti and Kills-in-Shadow would be like judging MCA solely based on Neeshka, or whoever your least favorite NWN2 companions happen to be.

You didn't read the link or is the post supposed to be sarcasm?

 

[Roguey]

Eric doesn't even work there anymore. Starks got in because of WildStar, Dollarhyde's a post-Fenstermaker hire.

 

[Infinitron]

Ah I see we've arrived at the inevitable "bitch about millennial female writers" part of this game's lifecycle. Might as well get it over with.

But look, this isn't a thing that's going to go away. In fact it's going to get worse. And it's not really about California. Look at the demographics. Which of the two sexes reads more books today? Which one earns more college degrees, especially in literature and the humanities?

We're not going to return to the era where most of an Obsidian RPG's writers were overeducated dudes who were born in the 1970s and played Planescape: Torment in college. That generation has moved on. You should actually expect majority-female or even all-female RPG writing teams to be the norm in the future.

 

[Oracsbox]

Ah I see we've arrived at the inevitable "bitch about millennial female writers" part of this game's lifecycle. Might as well get it over with.

But look, this isn't a thing that's going to go away. In fact it's going to get worse. And it's not really about California. Look at the demographics. Which of the two sexes reads more books today? Which one gets earns more college degrees, especially in literature and the humanities?

We're not going to return to the era where most of an Obsidian RPG's writers were overeducated dudes who were born in the 1970s and played Planescape: Torment in college. That generation has moved on. You should actually expect majority-female or even all-female RPG writing teams to be the norm in the future.

You know how soul crushing this statement is

 

[Roguey]

Ah I see we've arrived at the inevitable "bitch about millennial female writers" part of this game's lifecycle. Might as well get it over with.

But look, this isn't a thing that's going to go away. In fact it's going to get worse. And it's not really about California. Look at the demographics. Which of the two sexes reads more books today? Which one gets earns more college degrees, especially in literature and the humanities?

We're not going to return to the era where most of an Obsidian RPG's writers were overeducated dudes who were born in the 1970s and played Planescape: Torment in college. That generation has moved on. You should actually expect majority-female or even all-female RPG writing teams to be the norm in the future.

How about hiring narrative designers whose qualifications involve running P&P games?

(of course this approach gets you Hepler, but y'know, at this point that's an improvement

Edit: Never mind, saw her twitter, like everyone else she's gone nuts about politics and perceived antisemitism)

 

[HoboForEternity]

megan "she is okay" starks

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I guess it explains why it's a lesbian planet.

 

[Glenda Glenn]

You know how soul crushing this statement is

Game over, man! Game over!

 

[Oracsbox]

You know how soul crushing this statement is

Game over, man! Game over!

Until the inevitable collapse of Western civilisation and then women will go back into the kitchen and make me a sandwich :D.