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

Quillon

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
5,214
Callous and sometimes self-serving corps that nonetheless have the power and know-how to run the colonies versus well-meaning humane ideas guys indies who can barely run their own groups.
There, that's all they needed to make a sensible Corps vs Indies narrative. I guess they "didn't have the time" to flesh out the Corporation path... again.
That would require them having writers capable of writing anything other than a southern california woman in her late 20s.
Callous and sometimes self-serving corps that nonetheless have the power and know-how to run the colonies versus well-meaning humane ideas guys indies who can barely run their own groups.
There, that's all they needed to make a sensible Corps vs Indies narrative. I guess they "didn't have the time" to flesh out the Corporation path... again.
You'd need competent writers to achieve that.

Both interesting points but my very different take on this: I think they should hire better writers.




Btw. when Boyarsky said that he edited all the writing that went into the game, he must have meant that he only checked the writing for typos.
 

Bliblablubb

Arcane
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Messages
2,925
Location
Copium Den
ATM I cannot see any point in using pistol unless you want to roleplay.
Only reason I saw was cheap exploiting of a not-thought-through mechanic: the vermin revolvers have "knockdown" as speshul ability, so you can put 2 mudcrab queens prone on their face during bullet time. Then shoot them with something else. Rinse and repeat until bored or enemy dead.

You know, the stuff consoletards call "strategy" and post long ass videos about min-maxing and best-in-slot gear they spent 2 hours grinding on.


Where is Sawyer to rebalance a single player game when you need him?
:balance:
 

Junmarko

† Cristo è Re †
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CPS7hvA.png


:deadtroll:
 

soulburner

Cipher
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Sep 21, 2013
Messages
809
Wow, I never understood romances in RPGs. I can't recall which game was first that offered me such an option, but it was pure cringe and I though "why? what for?". I also remember in one of the Mass Effects I was just being nice to one guy companion and he said he won't fuck with me because we don't know each other too well. I was like "oh, ok, dude, later" :|
 

just

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 6, 2019
Messages
1,296
Wow, I never understood romances in RPGs. I can't recall which game was first that offered me such an option, but it was pure cringe and I though "why? what for?". I also remember in one of the Mass Effects I was just being nice to one guy companion and he said he won't fuck with me because we don't know each other too well. I was like "oh, ok, dude, later" :|
witcher 1 has the superior romance system. i dont think it can ever be topped
i lost my scarf -> here you go -> new card in the deck
only a thing missing is to import the deck into 3 to play gwent
 
Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Oct 2, 2018
Messages
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大同
Best gaming romance is still the de'Arnise mod for BG2. Shame that it got discontinued and that it will never have a ToB component.
:despair:
 

Bliblablubb

Arcane
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Messages
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Copium Den
Nah, best gaming romance was Miria in Fallout 2: get caught boinking the village bicycle by her father, endure a shotgun wedding and be forced to drag her useless ass around for the rest of the game. Unless you divorce her or she gets killed. On the plus side, trappers payed gecko pelts for getting to know her. *winkwink*

Heh, the game's box literally had "pimp your spouse for that little extra money" as a feature on it. Gotta admire their honesty. :obviously:
 

The Dutch Ghost

Arbiter
Joined
May 26, 2016
Messages
681
Honestly worthy of a DLC rather instead of trying some damn attempt at fixing how damn average the game's design in general is, for example opening up more of Byzantium or other maps and add some decently thought out quests.

Hope Obsidian will appease these fans because most likely they will be the only ones in the future.
 

Quillon

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
5,214
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kxm43/the-personal-story-behind-parvati-the-surprise-star-of-the-outer-worlds

When Dollarhyde was handed control of writing Parvati, a few essential parts of the character were already in place from L’Etoile, including the fact that Parvati identified as ace. When L’Etoile left, Dollarhyde was handed a “very long concept doc” for Parvati, and a bunch of dialogue that spanned the game’s first area, the player’s ship, and various quests. Dollarhyde said it’s actually pretty unusual to be handed that much material for a character.

“Companions are a little unique in that they tend to stay with the writer who was assigned to them,” she said, “unless there are significant extenuating circumstances, as happened in Parvati’s case. But other content gets shuffled around all the time, and it's really not abnormal.”


What made pairing Dollarhyde with Parvati unique was something they shared in common: Dollarhyde also identifies as ace. Now, Parvati had a very personal voice behind her writing. This wasn’t the reason Dollarhyde was assigned Parvati; during the development of The Outer Worlds, she wasn’t publicly out. But all that changed after the game was released, when Parvati, and by extension Dollarhyde, has suddenly become a face for the game.

“In doing these interviews I've had to basically out myself to the internet and all my coworkers, which is a very weird feeling,” she said. “So now everyone who reads an article knows that I'm ace and knows that I'm bi, and so does everyone on the internet. And some of them knew that before, but not all of them did!”

Hmn, so Chris defined her as asexual and this is a coincidental self-insert...

:neveraskedforthis:

There’s another interesting wrinkle to the conversation with Parvati, when she opens up. In most RPGs like The Outer Worlds, players are granted a wide range of responses to every situation. You can be nice, you can be an asshole, you can be indifferent. In this moment, when Parvati chooses to be vulnerable, the game explicitly limits your range of responses.


“I want that conversation to feel like a safe space for the players who are playing it and identify with it,” she said. “I don't want to pull the rug out from under them and say, ‘Haha, actually you're a joke,’ or ‘other people think you are a joke.’ [...] I don't want to write a homophobia simulator. [laughs] That's not what I got in the game writing for.”

You can be a lot of things in The Outer Worlds, but you can’t be a bigot to Parvati.

:roll:

The Personal Story Behind Parvati, the Surprise Star of 'The Outer Worlds'

Parvati has become a rallying cry for a group of marginalized people who rarely see themselves depicted with such care and nuance.

By Patrick Klepek
Nov 13 2019, 5:00pm
ShareTweetSnap

IMAGE COURTESY OF PRIVATE DIVISION

There’s lots to like in the early hours of The Outer Worlds, the new sci-fi RPG from Obsidian. The colorful alien world. A disdain for capitalism. Dropping endless points into a dialogue stat. But more than anything, what stands out is Parvati Holcomb, a shy but infectiously curious resident of Edgewater who’s retained a sense of optimism under the crushing weight of a company town engineered to break spirits. But it’s not just charm that’s granted Parvati an online fan club. People see themselves in Parvati, a character who identifies as ace—a sexual orientation in which people commonly experience no or little sexual attraction—and bi, an uncommon combination, even for a genre known for a wider range of characters.


“I have never seen myself represented in media the way I have with Parvati,” said one player on Twitter, when I asked why they responded to the character. After encountering a dialogue option where the player can also self identify as ace, they set the controller down and cried.

In most games, especially at the scale of The Outer Worlds, it’s difficult to find anything made by a single person; it’s a collaborative effort. This is even true for Parvati, a character conceived by writer Chris L’Etoile before they left the project, and then passed to narrative designer Kate Dollarhyde. She didn’t create the character model, rig the animation, or provide the voice that helps bring the character to life, but Dollarhyde was largely responsible for one of the biggest reasons Parvati continues to stand out: the writing.

Watching the fandom unexpectedly champion Parvati has been a lot for Dollarhyde.

“It's been quite overwhelming, honestly,” she told me during an interview recently. “It's been unexpected the degree to which people are connecting with the character and reaching out to me personally—not just through like the support tickets on our website, but through my personal website, on Twitter. It’s been it's been a lot, but most of it's been very, very good and very sweet. So I feel weirdly blessed in that way.”

1573595470738-the-outer-worlds-july-hands-on-7-1212x682.jpeg


When Dollarhyde was handed control of writing Parvati, a few essential parts of the character were already in place from L’Etoile, including the fact that Parvati identified as ace. When L’Etoile left, Dollarhyde was handed a “very long concept doc” for Parvati, and a bunch of dialogue that spanned the game’s first area, the player’s ship, and various quests. Dollarhyde said it’s actually pretty unusual to be handed that much material for a character.

“Companions are a little unique in that they tend to stay with the writer who was assigned to them,” she said, “unless there are significant extenuating circumstances, as happened in Parvati’s case. But other content gets shuffled around all the time, and it's really not abnormal.”


What made pairing Dollarhyde with Parvati unique was something they shared in common: Dollarhyde also identifies as ace. Now, Parvati had a very personal voice behind her writing. This wasn’t the reason Dollarhyde was assigned Parvati; during the development of The Outer Worlds, she wasn’t publicly out. But all that changed after the game was released, when Parvati, and by extension Dollarhyde, has suddenly become a face for the game.

“In doing these interviews I've had to basically out myself to the internet and all my coworkers, which is a very weird feeling,” she said. “So now everyone who reads an article knows that I'm ace and knows that I'm bi, and so does everyone on the internet. And some of them knew that before, but not all of them did!”

Dollarhyde said there have been some trolls, but largely it’s been “overwhelmingly positive.”

During development, before any of this became public, Dollarhyde was given a chance to imbue Parvati with her own real-life experiences. This is most present when Parvati joins the player’s crew and travels to Groundbreaker, an independent trading post in a galaxy mostly controlled by corporations. There, Parvati meets Junlei Tennyson, an engineer trying to keep the place from falling apart—and who quickly takes a liking to Parvati. Surprising herself, Parvati is interested in Junlei, too. This is where the player, if they ask the right questions, can learn why Parvati is understandably nervous about engaging in a romantic relationship.

Dollarhyde pointed to one line in particular, when Parvati describes how people have, in the past, called her cold, almost as if she’s a robot.


“That's a line directly taken from my own life,” she said.

The apprehension over how to talk to Junlei, about the fear of rejection, was hers, too.

“This person that she loves might start a relationship with her and be gung ho, maybe over time, they'll realize ‘I can't actually do this. I'm not. I'm not capable being in a relationship with an asexual person and dealing with those challenges’ and they gotta bounce,” said Dollarhyde. “That is a fear that has persisted through all of my adult life, so I wanted to put that directly in the text to speak to those people who I assume probably feel the same way.”

“In doing these interviews I've had to basically out myself to the internet and all my coworkers, which is a very weird feeling. So now everyone who reads an article knows that I'm ace and knows that I'm bi, and so does everyone on the internet. And some of them knew that before, but not all of them did!”

Part of what makes this moment remarkable is that it’s not remarkable. Parvati being ace is not treated as a plot twist, but simply one of many characteristics that make up who she is. Dollarhyde mentioned comments she’s seen from queer players of The Outer Worlds who see Parvati not as pandering, but a fully developed person. That reaction was intentional.

There’s another interesting wrinkle to the conversation with Parvati, when she opens up. In most RPGs like The Outer Worlds, players are granted a wide range of responses to every situation. You can be nice, you can be an asshole, you can be indifferent. In this moment, when Parvati chooses to be vulnerable, the game explicitly limits your range of responses.


“I want that conversation to feel like a safe space for the players who are playing it and identify with it,” she said. “I don't want to pull the rug out from under them and say, ‘Haha, actually you're a joke,’ or ‘other people think you are a joke.’ [...] I don't want to write a homophobia simulator. [laughs] That's not what I got in the game writing for.”

You can be a lot of things in The Outer Worlds, but you can’t be a bigot to Parvati.

1573595643238-2.png


Part of what makes Parvati feel so real goes beyond the writing—it’s her voice. Specifically, the way actress Ashly Burch, the voice of Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn and Chloe in Life Is Strange, infuses Parvati with a nervous and bouncy energy. What’s amazing is how long Parvati existed in The Outer Worlds without Burch’s voice attached. In fact, this was the case the vast majority of the several years The Outer Worlds was in development. At Obsidian, adding voice actors to their characters comes late in the production process.

For years, basically, Dollarhyde had to imagine how Parvati would sound to players.

“For so much of development,” she said, “the characters are either non-voiced or they are voiced by robot, and it's really hard to tell how the content actually feels. Is this joke bad or does the robot make it sound bad? [laughs] It was really not clear.”

Parvati didn’t even get a unique robot. The same damn robot read all the content. Obsidian’s development tools, until recently, didn’t allow for what’s called “scratch” or “temp” voice acting, a placeholder before an actor is hired, often with a developer doing the character.


Dollarhyde had listened to a lot of auditions for Parvati, but none of them fully clicked. While attending a talk at the Game Developers Conference, Dollarhyde received an excited Slack message from Obsidian audio director Justin Bell, demanding she immediately listen to something. That “something” was a few excerpts from a Parvati audition from Ashly Burch.

“I left a presentation I was in,” she said, “went to go out in the hall, and put my headphones on and just listened to the audio file he sent me. It was Ashly reading Parvati and I'm like ‘Yeah, this is her. This is absolutely her.’ As soon as I heard it, I was like, ‘This is the way she's always sounded to me. Will Ashly really do this? Oh my god.’”

She really would end up doing it, of course.

“There’s something so moving and endearing about someone who still finds beauty and wonder in a bleak world,” Burch told me. “Those aspects of [Paravti] really struck me.”

The end result is one of the most memorable video game characters of 2019. Parvati is not only fascinating and fun, but she’s become an unexpected a rallying cry for a group of marginalized people who rarely see themselves depicted with such care and nuance.

“I put a lot of my personal experience into this character,” said Dollarhyde . “Growing up, you do feel alone. You do feel sort of weird and maybe a little broken. And thank God for the internet; I found other people who were like me. But it feels an honor to give people that same experience, a chance to find a community like that. And so it's been healing for me, in a way.”
 
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Joined
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Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
. When L’Etoile left, Dollarhyde was handed a “very long concept doc” for Parvati, and a bunch of dialogue that spanned the game’s first area, the player’s ship, and various quests
You can actually pinpoint the moment she took over.
Parvati probably would have been more well received here if her companion quest was actually related at all to her. Everything you learn about her in the first town basically goes out the window for "lol lesbian asexual date nite!!!"
Her mom? Who cares.

Dollarhyde pointed to one line in particular, when Parvati describes how people have, in the past, called her cold, almost as if she’s a robot.


“That's a line directly taken from my own life,” she said.

The apprehension over how to talk to Junlei, about the fear of rejection, was hers, too.

“This person that she loves might start a relationship with her and be gung ho, maybe over time, they'll realize ‘I can't actually do this. I'm not. I'm not capable being in a relationship with an asexual person and dealing with those challenges’ and they gotta bounce,” said Dollarhyde. “That is a fear that has persisted through all of my adult life, so I wanted to put that directly in the text to speak to those people who I assume probably feel the same way.”

IT'S NOT A SELF INSERT OK


There’s another interesting wrinkle to the conversation with Parvati, when she opens up. In most RPGs like The Outer Worlds, players are granted a wide range of responses to every situation. You can be nice, you can be an asshole, you can be indifferent. In this moment, when Parvati chooses to be vulnerable, the game explicitly limits your range of responses.


“I want that conversation to feel like a safe space for the players who are playing it and identify with it,” she said. “I don't want to pull the rug out from under them and say, ‘Haha, actually you're a joke,’ or ‘other people think you are a joke.’ [...] I don't want to write a homophobia simulator. [laughs] That's not what I got in the game writing for.”

You can be a lot of things in The Outer Worlds, but you can’t be a bigot to Parvati.
:prosper:
Being able to murder everyone = ok
Being mean to a self-insert = BAD, HOMOPHOBIA SIMULATOR
 
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Duraframe300

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
6,395
. When L’Etoile left, Dollarhyde was handed a “very long concept doc” for Parvati, and a bunch of dialogue that spanned the game’s first area, the player’s ship, and various quests
You can actually pinpoint the moment she took over.
Parvati probably would have been more well received here if her companion quest was actually related at all to her. Everything you learn about her in the first town basically goes out the window for "lol lesbian asexual date nite!!!"
Her mom? Who cares.

Dollarhyde pointed to one line in particular, when Parvati describes how people have, in the past, called her cold, almost as if she’s a robot.


“That's a line directly taken from my own life,” she said.

The apprehension over how to talk to Junlei, about the fear of rejection, was hers, too.

“This person that she loves might start a relationship with her and be gung ho, maybe over time, they'll realize ‘I can't actually do this. I'm not. I'm not capable being in a relationship with an asexual person and dealing with those challenges’ and they gotta bounce,” said Dollarhyde. “That is a fear that has persisted through all of my adult life, so I wanted to put that directly in the text to speak to those people who I assume probably feel the same way.”

IT'S NOT A SELF INSERT OK

Dollarhyde's project is the one I absolutly dread of Obsidian's upcoming games.

OTOH, hopefully it keeps her away from other projects, but thats more than *fabously optimistic*.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
There’s another interesting wrinkle to the conversation with Parvati, when she opens up. In most RPGs like The Outer Worlds, players are granted a wide range of responses to every situation. You can be nice, you can be an asshole, you can be indifferent. In this moment, when Parvati chooses to be vulnerable, the game explicitly limits your range of responses.
“I want that conversation to feel like a safe space for the players who are playing it and identify with it,” she said. “I don't want to pull the rug out from under them and say, ‘Haha, actually you're a joke,’ or ‘other people think you are a joke.’ [...] I don't want to write a homophobia simulator. [laughs] That's not what I got in the game writing for.”
— Kate Dollarhyde, Obsidian Entertainment, 2019

Players should be able to play an RPG the way they want, and they don’t need my moral judgments getting in the way of how they have fun. I also am not a fan of pre-determined attitudes and alignments for players-my hope is that at the end of the game, they’ve answered the question, “What kind of character am I really, and how did that depart from what I thought I would be?” I always considered Torment a sort of role-player’s experiment, where each incarnation of the Nameless One had the potential to be a different personality and a different type of gamer, depending on the choices he made in the game world. It’s echoed a bit in Alpha Protocol at the end of game with Leland, where he asks if you became the person you set out to be when you joined the agency, and it’s something I like to keep asking players when possible because moments of self-reflection never hurt.
— Chris Avellone, Obsidian Entertainment, 2010
 
Self-Ejected

Alphard

Self-Ejected
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Draghistan ( former Italy)
. When L’Etoile left, Dollarhyde was handed a “very long concept doc” for Parvati, and a bunch of dialogue that spanned the game’s first area, the player’s ship, and various quests
You can actually pinpoint the moment she took over.
Parvati probably would have been more well received here if her companion quest was actually related at all to her. Everything you learn about her in the first town basically goes out the window for "lol lesbian asexual date nite!!!"
Her mom? Who cares.

Dollarhyde pointed to one line in particular, when Parvati describes how people have, in the past, called her cold, almost as if she’s a robot.


“That's a line directly taken from my own life,” she said.

The apprehension over how to talk to Junlei, about the fear of rejection, was hers, too.

“This person that she loves might start a relationship with her and be gung ho, maybe over time, they'll realize ‘I can't actually do this. I'm not. I'm not capable being in a relationship with an asexual person and dealing with those challenges’ and they gotta bounce,” said Dollarhyde. “That is a fear that has persisted through all of my adult life, so I wanted to put that directly in the text to speak to those people who I assume probably feel the same way.”

IT'S NOT A SELF INSERT OK

Dollarhyde's project is the one I absolutly dread of Obsidian's upcoming games.

OTOH, hopefully it keeps her away from other projects, but thats more than *fabously optimistic*.
Obsidian has been assimilated. Abandon all hope
 

Quillon

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
5,214
. When L’Etoile left, Dollarhyde was handed a “very long concept doc” for Parvati, and a bunch of dialogue that spanned the game’s first area, the player’s ship, and various quests
You can actually pinpoint the moment she took over.
Parvati probably would have been more well received here if her companion quest was actually related at all to her. Everything you learn about her in the first town basically goes out the window for "lol lesbian asexual date nite!!!"
Her mom? Who cares.

Dollarhyde pointed to one line in particular, when Parvati describes how people have, in the past, called her cold, almost as if she’s a robot.


“That's a line directly taken from my own life,” she said.

The apprehension over how to talk to Junlei, about the fear of rejection, was hers, too.

“This person that she loves might start a relationship with her and be gung ho, maybe over time, they'll realize ‘I can't actually do this. I'm not. I'm not capable being in a relationship with an asexual person and dealing with those challenges’ and they gotta bounce,” said Dollarhyde. “That is a fear that has persisted through all of my adult life, so I wanted to put that directly in the text to speak to those people who I assume probably feel the same way.”

IT'S NOT A SELF INSERT OK

Dollarhyde's project is the one I absolutly dread of Obsidian's upcoming games.

OTOH, hopefully it keeps her away from other projects, but thats more than *fabously optimistic*.

What if the cancelled project was hers?
rating_negativeman.png
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Messages
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Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
That has been a thing for awhile now, no game will allow you to disapprove of homosexuality. Note however they will allow you to freely dump on religion or religious people.

Tells you what is actually sacred in our culture.

*edit* parvati is not a very memorable character either, more like she's the least bland oatmeal in a sea of oatmeal. She's a blatant Kaylee ripoff from Firefly with an inexplicable mix of southern accent and Hindu ethnicity shift along with a wierd, bizzaro "muh gender politics" "I'm gay but don't like actually being sexual with women" attitude that A. makes no fucking sense and B. is totally unrelatable to a 99% male playerbase that just wants to see boobs.
 
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Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Wow, I never understood romances in RPGs. I can't recall which game was first that offered me such an option, but it was pure cringe and I though "why? what for?". I also remember in one of the Mass Effects I was just being nice to one guy companion and he said he won't fuck with me because we don't know each other too well. I was like "oh, ok, dude, later" :|
witcher 1 has the superior romance system. i dont think it can ever be topped
i lost my scarf -> here you go -> new card in the deck
only a thing missing is to import the deck into 3 to play gwent

I agree with this, collecting naked women as literal trophies during your quest to bang your way across the realm is an actual fantasy men can relate to, that's why game journos hated it. Men can't even have sexual fantasies with fictional women without real-life twats sticking their cankles in and screeching about it.

Meanwhile every single female romance book--if rated from 1 to 10 for level of cringe female rape fantasies--rates at least an 8 and quickly rockets off the chart.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
So hurting an npc virtual feelings is terrible, murdering hundreads of npcs in the same game is totally ok.

Left "morals"
I think this explains Modern Leftist Progressive "writing" and why the characters they "write" end up the way they do and are ultimately boring, one-dimensional and pointless and come off as propaganda rather well: https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...-ra-princesses-power-nonbinary-double-trouble
In Netflix’s ‘She-Ra,’ even villains respect nonbinary pronouns

“‘She-Ra’ is built for a generation that doesn’t need that kind of education in the same way anymore,” said Tobia. “Young people in Generation Z know who nonbinary people are, they know what they/them pronouns are. They know that gender is a spectrum, not a binary. They already know this.”

That means everybody in Etheria already knows this too, including the leader of the Evil Horde.

“The thing that was really gratifying in a very surprising way for me is a scene where Hordak talks about Double Trouble and just says ‘they’ effortlessly, with no thought, and just uses gender-neutral pronouns,” said Tobia. “Even the most evil person on the planet doesn’t misgender people, because that would be rude. There’s something really cool about that.

“Also, if Hordak can use they/them pronouns appropriately, I think anyone can. Do you really want to be worse than Hordak by misgendering nonbinary people? No, you don’t.”

They added: “Queer and trans people have been working in animation and have been influencing how kids animation looks and what the worlds of kids animation are for a really, really long time. This is only an extension of all of that work. It’s a next step in a much longer journey.”

While Double Trouble was not created specifically to educate viewers on nonbinary issues, Stevenson recognizes that approach is legitimate (and important) — while pointing out that it can also be limiting, since it often requires characters to be close to perfect.

One way to avoid that dilemma is by creating an inclusive universe like Etheria, where gender isn’t constricted and heteronormativity doesn’t exist. In a sci-fi/fantasy show where magical powers and interdimensional space travel exist, it shouldn’t be a stretch to believe queer and gender nonconforming people do too — whether as protagonists or antagonists.
"He might be Evil or of a different species, kills or enslaves millions of people to achieve his goals and has no respect for human life, wanting to take over the world or blowing up planets just because in a world alien to our own on the far frontier of space, a world ravaged by things like war and famine hundreds of years into the future or past in a state of constant danger with marauders and monsters attacking what remains of civilization daily. But even HE cares deeply and agrees with my fringe Californian bubble-politics about gender and has ~2019 Progressive Socialist sensibilities/morals/values, just like every other faction and character in the setting!
He might do all these objectionable things, but even he's not like the really evil/"intolerant" majority of the world population today that don't agree with me about everything, won't use my pronouns or vote for a different political party!" - Good Writing and World Building
 
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Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Amused by how that fan art makes her much cuter than how she appears in-game.

It's surprising to me how much Ellie was featured in the game's trailers and promos compared to how inconsequential she is in the actual game. Compare her to Parvati and Nyoko, both of which have meaningful involvement in story quests, and even Vicar and Felix are at least tangential to the plot. Ellie is just a random chick on a side quest who sticks around for no reason. I wonder if Nyoko and Ellie were switched in the story at some point, or Ellie had more story quests that were cut.
 

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