The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition - Obsidian's first-person sci-fi RPG set in a corporate space colony

[Shadenuat]

Sawyer at least understands the importance of difficulty

Even though it is not important for sales, as we can observe. sadness.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Sawyer at least understands the importance of difficulty

Even though it is not important for sales

I take it you didn't play Deadfire on launch.

 

[Shadenuat]

it was a bug dude.

 

[Daedalos]

Failure of the main and side quests to grab the player is the biggest flaw of the game. I complete the game atm because I want to end it, simply almost feels like a chore, but i'm too OCD'd not to finish it.

But I don't have that feeling like, omg, i need to get back into the game and see whats up with the story, that feeling died very shortly after early parts of the game.

Exploration is dogshit because the environments and the open world spaces are filled with trash loot, trash mobs and generally just hard to tell apart because of the artstyle

Choices dont feel meaningful because you pretty much can pass all skillchecks, because of how much xp u get, and how easy it is to acquire gear and shit.

The factions dont feel engaging either, and the C&C the follows is mostly meh

 

[Riddler]

Sawyer at least understands the importance of difficulty

Even though it is not important for sales

I take it you didn't play Deadfire on launch.

I thought that was mandated by Feargus and Sawyer argued against it.

 

[Shadenuat]

Deadfire development was probably hell; especially when owners came in with grand idea of fully VOing game when it was already in development

Well, not probably; Sawyer stated as much and now has lots of grey hair.

I thought that was mandated by Feargus and Sawyer argued against it.

I can see this being possible; i.e. the bashing of Kingmaker highest difficulty proving it might be a good move to release game too easy; releasing it too hard even if it's optional is worse.

 

[Van-d-all]

Going freelance bars you from overseeing a whole project, though. When was the last time Avellone was a lead on anything? His talents are criminally underused, Larian didn't even use his work for Fane in the end (afaik).

But thanks to that, look in how many projects he's taken part in just the last few years, bless him. Plus while it might's not be a stable "job", I bet it's more profitable, and it's not like he's going to get more famous in the industry anyways.

 

[DeepOcean]

You need someone capable of human emotions to compensate for Sawyer advanced production AI, if it is let on its own devices, it will go rogue and create a machine controlled regime to exterminate all fun for the sake of humanity and achieve perfect balance.

 

[Hot Coldman]

How so? Boyarsky was lead narrative designer and co-director here. Shouldn't the blame for this be placed on him?

Can you also see Boyarsky being all "oh wow, that's so funny Megan, great job!", all grimacing and pretending to wipe his tears, desperately trying to steer clear from the meetoo waters, quietly thinking "I'm too old for this shit, just trying to survive till my first social security check"?

Or, as you say yourself:

My take is that Leonard is still burned out and doesn't have the energy to wrangle 5.5 incompetent writers into creating something decent.

Also this

TOW ended up being half-women/half-soymen in terms of writing staff anyway.

Well Feargus just tought "How can I hire writers on almost minimum wage levels here on California? Nobody gives a shit about writing anyway." Well, I can't blame him, most normies are loving this game, his plan worked flawlessly.
I agree with Infinitron, this will only get worse, but you guise relic nostalgia for Obsidian is an old man obcession at this point, the company is dead, at least the things that were good about it. Dunno why people still care, at this point there is no difference from Obsidian and other AAA garbage factories, I dunno why you guys keep holding the flame of hope. Maybe now on Microsoft, they get money to hire real writers but I doubt anything appealing to our niche will come out of it. Maybe Obsidian will make another looter shooter to compete with Borderlands 3 and Destiny 2, Feargus will love it, maybe we will get a looter shooter that is 10% slightly better written, guess that is incline amiright?

Trying out this game gave me a new hunger for an open world RPG. I ended up installing and boot up Morrowind
for the first time in a very long time. Sweet, believable world in computer-format bliss.. It feels lived-in, the same
way New Vegas does. Certainly a greater open world RPG than TOW, which reminds me of a romp (albeit with a few more skill checks) a la FO4.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

But even if I go full liberal and pretend that women can successfully write for a male audience (which is not impossible, I just consider it very rare), can they at least try to hire competent ones that can appeal to said audience?

The first burning question is "what does it mean to appeal to a male audience?". Your answer would be "pretty ladies and buff dudes saving those pretty ladies", but that's extremely shallow and most well-read adult men wouldn't find that very exciting or stimulating. There's a whole novel about that, it's called Don Quixote. What is left then?

Appealing to male audience means this:

You like men eh. Lots of men in the video games. A masculine narrative. Traditional virile values. The phallus is omnipotent, but gentle at the same time. It must come from within, but also express itself outwards. And so, women want to take over the world, and the video game. A fatal mistake. God is absolute. The Phallus eternally erect. It must come from within, but also express itself outwards. As I walk through the valley of death, the masculine virtues eject sperm all over the maternal stratosphere. There can be only one. Power is Unity. Unity is the Phallus. These fools think to emasculate us, but I write on an rpg internet forum. I am beyond contemporary feminist culture. Nothing stops men from taking what they want. And what they want is the phallus. You know you want this fucking dick bonzo. It's coming out for you. It must come from within, but also express itself outwards.

 

[Lacrymas]

But thanks to that, look in how many projects he's taken part in just the last few years, bless him.

That's good of course, but the problem is that we don't see much of his efforts even in the games he has worked on. Writing a single companion only makes the rest of the writing look worse by comparison and we aren't satisfied either way.

 

[Reinhardt]

Oh, two more pages

Yeah, things slowing down. I guess game is already dead.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Mistakes were made, but I think in the long run these guys from the MOTB era like George Ziets, Eric Fenstermaker, etc were never going to be content to remain a dream team of "Avellone understudies" forever. It seems that if you're a really smart professional male video game writer, your natural career path is to eventually either become a bigshot Creative Lead (which means you have to find a studio where that position is open - see Fallout: New Vegas's John Gonzales) or go freelance.

I am very glad that infinitron is not blindly defending TOW and is instead writing pretty good assessments of Obsidian's condition with its current writing team. Infinitron stat changes (Apologist - 1, Respectful +1).

 

[Prime Junta]

That's good of course, but the problem is that we don't see much of his efforts even in the games he has worked on. Writing a single companion only makes the rest of the writing look worse by comparison and we aren't satisfied either way.

He sure looks like he's creatively burned out. If there was a great game inside him waiting to get out, he would do whatever it takes to make it happen.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Sawyer is a good developer but he needs someone to hold his leash. He understands where the problems are and has vision and ambition, but he needs help.

I don't think Sawyer is the problem at all. In the right team, with other people in charge of areas which are their strength, Sawyer can be a GREAT designer. I don't think he should be a studio lead though.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

it was a bug dude.

Combat being too easy wasn't a bug. They had to rework all the encounters for POTD from the ground up.

I thought that was mandated by Feargus and Sawyer argued against it.

Nah, watch the postmortem video, difficulty was entirely Sawyer's fault. He dismissed the feedback about difficulty during the beta because he assumed all the complaints are from hardcore minmaxers.

 

[cvv]

Oh, two more pages

Yeah, things slowing down. I guess game is already dead.

Despite all that normie teeheeing and cooing RN this game is not gonna have one tenth of the legs and long term presence PoE1 had. It's gonna be digested and shat out just like the cotton candy of a game that it it.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

High hopes for Iron Tower writer Vince's next game too, Mothership.

*mumblegrumbleColonyshipgrumblemumble*

 

[Shadenuat]

there was also a bug with highest difficulty

but yeah, I remember it now, he indeed lafed off grognard troubles there.

However, Josh still stated that, by design he does think difficulty is important and some ez things making game too easy is bad. That was my point; not if he does it super well always or anything - but his mod for FNV shows he can do it well.

 

[Riddler]

That's good of course, but the problem is that we don't see much of his efforts even in the games he has worked on. Writing a single companion only makes the rest of the writing look worse by comparison and we aren't satisfied either way.

He sure looks like he's creatively burned out. If there was a great game inside him waiting to get out, he would do whatever it takes to make it happen.

He is old, fat and out of cocaine.

Perhaps the codex could organise a fundraiser in order to send him a care-package?

 

[Reinhardt]

Oh, two more pages

Yeah, things slowing down. I guess game is already dead.

Despite all that normie teeheeing and cooing RN this game is not gonna have one tenth of the legs and long term presence PoE1 had. It's gonna be digested and shat out just like the cotton candy of a game that it it.

Fate of "open world rpg game" with nothing to do in and without modding community.

 

[frajaq]

Real scummy on Obsidian part to make the game appear bigger than it is by putting planets on the galaxy map with no way to get to it (outside of buying the fucking DLC in the future lol)

Kinda reminds me of that one guy in the camp in Dragon Age Origins that tells you about an old Grey Warden keep but hey bro gotta buy that shit first!!!!

 

[Van-d-all]

That's good of course, but the problem is that we don't see much of his efforts even in the games he has worked on. Writing a single companion only makes the rest of the writing look worse by comparison and we aren't satisfied either way.

He sure looks like he's creatively burned out. If there was a great game inside him waiting to get out, he would do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Even if, so what? He really done his part, it's not up to him that no-one stepped into his shoes.

 

[Reinhardt]

So far my impressions fron Cain+Boyarsky dream game are perfectly described by words of russian classic

"Вот так скотина! добрые люди кровопролитиев от него ждали, а он Чижика съел!"

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Well, i do agree that at this point, obsessing over the long-gone

Real scummy on Obsidian part to make the game appear bigger than it is by putting planets on the galaxy map with no way to get to it (outside of buying the fucking DLC in the future lol)

This game is 50% smaller than it looks like. In all areas. All this talk of extensive C&C and hidden approaches, deep systems etc etc. is all ignorance. So much of it is smoke and mirrors. Of course, we can't expect the average "journalist" and Tubers to actually play two runs before writing their reviews.