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

LESS T_T

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Informative interview from RPGSite: https://www.rpgsite.net/interview/8...interview-with-game-director-leonard-boyarsky

It also answers about the rights to sequels:

RPG Site: (laughs) But if it's a hit, and the opportunity to follow up with a sequel or DLC or something is announced. Whose decision would that be? Obsidian's, Microsoft's, or Private Division?

Mikey Dowling: It would be Microsoft, if a sequel would happen.

The Outer Worlds: Interview with Game Director Leonard Boyarsky

It's been about half a year since Obsidian Entertainment first unveiled The Outer Worlds on The Game Awards stage. We were lucky enough to be able to get a live preview of the game late last year as well as talk to Narrative Designer Megan Starks about some of the game's philosophies about companions and choice. Half a year later, and Obsidian led off Microsoft's E3 2019 presser with a new trailer and a release date.

Afterwards, we were able to see about 30 minutes of new footage from the game taking place on the inhospitable Monarch (the footage was also shared on the E3 Colisseum webcast.) After the demonstration, we were able to sit down to chat with Game Director Leonard Boyarsky to talk about the identity of The Outer Worlds, comparisons to Fallout (Both Obsidian's New Vegas and the Interplay original), level scaling, the possibility of an eventual sequel, and more.

After graduating Cal State Fullerton and the Art Center College of Design with not one but two degrees in illustration, Leonard Boyarsky started working in the game industry as a freelance artist in 1992. After completing various art tasks on Unnatural Selection (eventually published by Maxis), Leonard became a full-time employee of Interplay Entertainment, as one of the lead artists on Stonekeep. After completing work on Stonekeep, Leonard became the Art Director and designer on the title he is best known for, Fallout, where he created the iconic '50's look, the Vault Boy character, and the intro and outro for the game among many other things. After completing the design for Fallout 2, Leonard became one of the co-founders of Troika Games in 1998, where he fulfilled a multitude of roles, including CEO, art director, concept artist, animator, modeler, designer, and writer on the classic games Arcanum (2001) and Vampire: Bloodlines (2004). From 2006 - 2016 Leonard worked at Blizzard Entertainment on Diablo 3 (2012) and its expansion, Reaper of Souls (2014) as the World Designer, conceiving and writing many of the new areas of the world and backstories for the new classes. In 2016 Leonard left Blizzard to become the co-Game Director on The Outer Worlds.​

RPG Site: So what's it like to have your game lead off the Microsoft E3 Press Conference this year, is that something you ever thought would happen?

Leonard Boyarsky: Nope, it was quite a very nice surprise.

RPG Site: What's it like to be able to leverage that kind of opportunity?

Leonard Boyarsky: With the exception of my time at Blizzard, everything I've gotten to work on has been relatively obscure things without a high profile -- back when I worked on the original Fallout even, no one knew what it was or cared.

RPG Site: So what is your specific role or title for this game? You and Tim Cain are often paired up, both acting as co-Directors, but what's been your focus specifically when it comes to The Outer Worlds?

Leonard Boyarsky: Well we both make sure to have a hand in the world building -- we create the world together, but I'm in charge of the writing, story, and art, while Tim focuses on more systems design and gameplay. But yes, we both do act as co-Directors.

RPG Site: People are often very quick to make comparisons to game's like Bioshock and especially Fallout: New Vegas, what do you feel when you see those comparisons made? Do you ever worry people are going to expect the game to be something different than what it is?

Leonard Boyarsky: Well, I think it's unavoidable that those comparisons are made, especially regarding Fallout. and I thought Bioshock did a fantastic job of world-building as well; the games we've been compared to are generally considered top tier, fantastic games so when the comparisons are made favorably, that really excites us. It's really funny, because we when made [the original] Fallout, it was something no one had really seen before. It was kinda steam-punk as it was at that time -- we didn't have all these other punks like diesel-punk, cyber-punk, so now there's this wider genre already out there. So we still wanted to make The Outer Worlds something people haven't really seen before.

RPG Site: So what sets The Outer Worlds apart?

Leonard Boyarsky: I think it's the tone and feel of the world, and the fact that it really reacts to your choices. There are a lot of games that do that now, at least more than there used to be, but I feel that we take it further than other games. That was one of the reasons that we didn't want a voiced protagonist. Because you know, once you do that you set the personality of the player at least partially in stone.

RPG Site: Speaking about Fallout, there's a sort of relevant tangent there as voice acting was added and it's not always seen as the best change the series has undertaken.

Leonard Boyarsky: Yea, I can't speak as to why Fallout went that direction, but for us it wasn't even a discussion to voice the player-character. It was always assumed from minute one that we would not. There's two aspects to it -- no matter what voice you 'pick', someone is going to feel that who they hear isn't who their character is. On the other side of that, if you're recording player voices you have to restrict what you write. If you come up with five more ideas or choices, but there's no opportunity to record new lines, then you can't really go further with ideas and you can't easily go back to add choices that weren't there before. So it gives us a lot more freedom, and it allows the player to completely imagine who they are in our world without anything in their way.

RPG Site: So about the characters that are voiced, the companions -- last year I got to talk about them a little bit with the game's first showing, but a couple of things were kept under wraps. We only knew of Felix and Ellie and since then Parvati. Is Nyoka (a companion showcased during the E3 demo) new?

Leonard Boyarsky: We didn't make a big deal about the reveal, but she was in our PAX demo a couple of months ago. So those are the four companions that we've talked about, and we aren't sharing yet the ultimate number or who the others might be. As always, we want the companions to be very integral to the game world. For instance, Nyoka is from Monarch, so when the player is running around this area, other characters will recognize her and have that history with her. She'll probably help call out a few people that are actually full of shit and trying to mislead you.

RPG Site: Seems like something she'd say.

Leonard Boyarsky: Exactly, and not only that but we tried to emphasize the Leadership characteristics in our demo, where companions are buffed to be even more important, and they'll even give part of their skills back to the player, so we don't just have companions as sounding boards, they'll have that gameplay role as well.
RPG Site: In some games with a system of companions, sometimes there are cases where two companions will never see eye-to-eye and you have to pick and choose. Is that the case in The Outer Worlds?

Leonard Boyarsky: No, in our mind, we wanted to make a rich group of characters that will effectively become your crew. Now, these characters all have deep ties to different parts of the world, but we didn't want to lock off characters behind allying with different factions or something like that. We didn't want to tell players "Oh, if you side with the Board, this is what companion we allow to side with you". We really wanted to allow players to build their crew as a group of smugglers or however they wanted to play it, and having this choice was always a conscious goal of ours.

RPG Site: Can you explicitly turn down a character from joining you, or lock yourself out of recruiting one?

Leonard Boyarsky: You can't lock yourself out of a companion, don't worry. You can send them away, however, and there are a few places where you'll specifically get chances to do that if you wish. It's all story-based though, there isn't a system like morale or influence, nothing like that. So having companions join up will never be a surprise, but there will be cases where they might want to leave if you keep going against them, but even then if you have a high Leadership you might be able to convince them to stay anyways.

RPG Site: Last year, I asked Megan if it was possible to kill any character in the game, and the answer was yes. I just want to make sure: is that true and still the case?

Leonard Boyarsky: [After a pause] There is one character that you can't kill until the end of the game. But every character in The Outer Worlds can be killed.

RPG Site: It's a pretty stark design decision to declare that you're going to allow that sort of freedom.

Leonard Boyarsky: It's always a goal of ours, I think - I can't remember if this is true - but even in the very first Fallout, that was a goal on our part, with the exception of one person that couldn't die because they were a ghost, so that's not cheating. Somewhat of another exception here are companion characters.

RPG Site: Oh?

Leonard Boyarsky: What I mean is, you can kill them before they become allied with you, but once they are, you don't have friendly fire options to be able to past that point. You can send them away and they'll disappear from the game, but as companion characters, they do work slightly differently. So I guess that's technically a caveat. Tim just did a playthrough where he killed almost everyone he came across, so he finished the game fairly quickly because he couldn't do most of the side quests. But he was able to complete the main story no problem.

RPG Site: It must be difficult to plan for that, to be able to allow the player to keep progressing despite playing like a lunatic murderer, I wouldn't want to play that way, but if you have even one person who does..

Leonard Boyarsky: It again wraps back to that degree of freedom that we want players to have, and to say some players not able to roleplay that way because they are in a safe place or because certain characters are invulnerable just takes away the immersion and makes it feel less genuine.

RPG Site: The ship that is showcased in a couple of the trailers, you've mentioned in the past it acts as a hub of sorts and it's where companions will hang out. I know this game isn't a space-sim, but I'm wondering if you'll be able to customize it or fly it?

Leonard Boyarsky: We did, early on, talk about being able to modify the ship, and as you complete quests and go throughout the game, it will change in some small ways, but it's not like you'll be able to change out the engines or upgrade parts of it or things like that. It was considered, but as a new IP with a smaller budget, we wanted to focus on character choices and things like that.

RPG Site: Another cool part of the game are the Science Weapons you've shown off, both the shrink ray and the face rearranging weapon, are there any others you're showing off at the moment?

Leonard Boyarsky: No, those are the only two we've shown off. We have kind of an internal logic behind the weapons, our world is very pulpy and Sci-Fi and we think those two are really emblematic of the tone which is why they've been kind of at the front.

RPG Site: In the demo we saw today, you showed off the disguise system in your game, I was wondering if there was also any system like Fallout: New Vegas, where certain gear could act as a disguise for entering places owned by different factions?

Leonard Boyarsky: The way the Holographic Shroud works is that once you get an ID cartridge for a certain faction, you can plug it into this device in order to mask your identity temporarily by creating this sort of 3D hologram around you. It works as a sort of timed meter which will slowly drain, but the disguise is lost faster if you run, or shoot at people, things like that. It plays also into the dialogue system as well, you'll have checks you'll need to pass one someone spots you once the meter is out, and I think on the final check you have to actually have two different buffed up dialogue skills in order to maintain the disguise.

RPG Site: So is having that item or ability available to everyone? Or is it like a quest reward or how does that work?

Leonard Boyarsky: Every player will always have it, but the challenge is being able to find the ID cartridges that will work for it, and then of course players with specific builds will be able to make better use of it once they have it. If you enter an area without it, you'll get a notification showing that it's restricted.

RPG Site: And then the player will have to think about where or what quest line might lead to getting an ID card for that area.

Leonard Boyarsky: Exactly.

RPG Site: You've mentioned previously that the level cap is 30. How high is that relative to the scope of the game? If I was being thorough and completing all the quests I see, how quickly would I hit it?

Leonard Boyarsky: We're balancing it right now, actually. We've had problems before where you'd reach max level too soon, so we're expanding that. We really don't want players to hit level 30 too far before the end, because then you've hit the ceiling, so to speak. So if you're just powering through, we have to figure out where players should be ability wise, and also the same for players that do every little quest.

RPG Site: How does level scaling work? Are a certain group of enemies in a location always going to be, say, level 12, and another region always something different?

Leonard Boyarsky: We're changing stuff like this every day, so this might still be tweaked, but what we have right now is limited level scaling. So if you go to a place early on that you're allowed to be, enemies might scale a little bit lower compared to if you return to that area later. Everything is sort of bracketed. Half the fun of an RPG is being able to overcome something that kicked your ass earlier and then coming back and effortlessly laying them out, and we wanted to preserve a part of that. But because this is a game that is story driven, there are a few places that will be locked off for story reasons that should feel valid and shouldn't come across as arbitrary at all -- we want to make sure things never feel too easy or have players feel unfairly penalized for exploring out from the story path.

RPG Site: Does The Outer Worlds have any sort of optional area whose difficulty supersedes the main questline? One cool part I look forward to in RPGs is the big optional area, the tough superdungeon, or something like that. Anything like that here, like maybe a big secret forest on Monarch?

Leonard Boyarsky: Well, if you stay on the main story path, things are going to stay a little bit easier relative to some other stuff near the end of the game, where if you go away from that road you're taking more chances. In the demo you saw the Mantiqueen, which is definitely a tough (optional) challenge. There's also something called 'mega', where monsters can be buffed even stronger.

RPG Site: If I were able to take on the Mega Mantiqueen and defeat it, how does loot work? Am I hoping for some percentage drop of gear from it, or maybe some rare material?

Leonard Boyarsky: Again, these things are constantly changing at the moment, but there's a certain amount of randomness, but we also have specific loot tables. You're never gonna loot a Mantiqueen and find...well, actually I think they can eat people and they can drop armor - I think. So it is random, but we try not to have it where a monster will drop a gun when it doesn't make sense.

RPG Site: Outer Worlds was announced for Game Pass for both Xbox and PC, if I wasn't subscribed to Game Pass, but did want to buy it this year on PC on Microsoft's store, I can do that this year?

Leonard Boyarsky: Yes.

RPG Site: We just learned that Witcher 3 is coming to Nintendo Switch. Is there any chance for The Outer Worlds? I know it seems like a crazy question, but so did the idea of Witcher 3.

(Director of Communications Mikey Dowling steps in to answer)

Mikey Dowling: We'll have to see, right now we're just focused on our current announced platforms of PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.

RPG Site: Let's say that The Outer Worlds is a hit..

Leonard Boyarsky: Let's say that! Let's say that a lot.

RPG Site: (laughs) But if it's a hit, and the opportunity to follow up with a sequel or DLC or something is announced. Whose decision would that be? Obsidian's, Microsoft's, or Private Division?

Mikey Dowling: It would be Microsoft, if a sequel would happen.

RPG Site: Thank you for your time!
 
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Nano

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Dishonoredbr

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RPG Site:
In the demo we saw today, you showed off the disguise system in your game, I was wondering if there was also any system like Fallout: New Vegas, where certain gear could act as a disguise for entering places owned by different factions?

Leonard Boyarsky: The way the Holographic Shroud works is that once you get an ID cartridge for a certain faction, you can plug it into this device in order to mask your identity temporarily by creating this sort of 3D hologram around you. It works as a sort of timed meter which will slowly drain, but the disguise is lost faster if you run, or shoot at people, things like that. It plays also into the dialogue system as well, you'll have checks you'll need to pass one someone spots you once the meter is out, and I think on the final check you have to actually have two different buffed up dialogue skills in order to maintain the disguise.

RPG Site: So is having that item or ability available to everyone? Or is it like a quest reward or how does that work?

Leonard Boyarsky: Every player will always have it, but the challenge is being able to find the ID cartridges that will work for it, and then of course players with specific builds will be able to make better use of it once they have it. If you enter an area without it, you'll get a notification showing that it's restricted.

RPG Site: And then the player will have to think about where or what quest line might lead to getting an ID card for that area.

Leonard Boyarsky: Exactly.

That's sounds a really good way to make Charisma/Spech based builds present into actual gameplay other than ''normal'' dialogue and their skill checks more frequent so you feel more reward about your choice of build , also make stealth/sneak skills something that isn't as needed, unlike FNV , for no-Kill/pacifist playthougths. But not dumb and unreliable as Fallout 4's Wasteland Whisperer and the Intimidation perks.
 
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Whipped Cream

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Very disappointed by the lack of a physical PC version. Guess I'll buy this game a bunch of years down the line when it reaches GOG.

One possibility is to sign up for one month of Xbox Game Pass for PC on November 1st (only costs 5 dollars), play the game for a month, forget about the game for a year and then buy it when it comes to GOG with bugfixes and DLCs.

The downside is that you have to use the shitty Microsoft Store when the game first comes out.

The upside is that in theory it should be easy to migrate save files from Microsoft Store to GOG/Steam, although that is not a 100% certainty obviously.
 
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Nano

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I don't think you understand. I'm disappointed because I refuse to install any game clients whatsoever on my PC (whether it's Steam/Epic/etc), so the only way I have to legally buy games is through retail or GOG.
 

Duraframe300

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Very disappointed by the lack of a physical PC version. Guess I'll buy this game a bunch of years down the line when it reaches GOG.

One possibility is to sign up for one month of Xbox Game Pass for PC on November 1st (only costs 5 dollars), play the game for a month, forget about the game for a year and then buy it when it comes to GOG on October 25th 2020, with bugfixes and DLCs.

The downside is that you have to use the shitty Microsoft Store when the game first comes out.

The upside is that in theory it should be easy to migrate save files from Microsoft Store to GOG/Steam, although that is not a 100% certainty obviously.

The new XBOX app is hopefully out of beta by then, or use the GOG Galaxy 2.0 client if its out by then. (Doubt)
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Unless I missed something, afaik it's not guaranteed that this game will ever come out on GOG. Don't wait a year expecting it to show up there unless we hear otherwise.

I sent Private Division an email asking if their store offers an offline installer similar to what GOG has.
 

Nano

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It's not guaranteed that this game will ever come out on GOG. Don't wait a year expecting it to show up there unless we hear otherwise.
Absolutely. I was thinking more along the lines of New Vegas where it was put on GOG nearly a decade after release.
 

Whipped Cream

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Unless I missed something, afaik It's not guaranteed that this game will ever come out on GOG. Don't wait a year expecting it to show up there.

Yeah, I realised this right after I wrote my post.

I don't think you understand. I'm disappointed because I refuse to install any game clients whatsoever on my PC (whether it's Steam/Epic/etc), so the only way I have to legally buy games is through retail or GOG.

I think thats a policy that is going to be hard for you to maintain in the long run. Physical distribution is dying. In a couple of years time I suspect that the only physical versions of most PC games that will be available will be collectors editions.
 

Egosphere

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Don't know what to think of this, anymore. Was excited when I saw the first trailer, until the first gameplay preview came out. Then the new gameplay stuff appeared and it looked much better, but the trailers started looking awful. I hope the writing is good. That and the quest design can salvage the technical shortcomings. But it's not the team that worked on new vegas, so how high can your hopes get? :(
 

cvv

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Yeah, I'm mighty confuse too about this. I love the idea, the world and the names behind the game. But I fucking loathe this stupid cartoony ghastly art style and cheapo vibe, it's like if Borderlands and Fallout 3 had clumsy drunk sex in a dirty slum alley. Plus those braindead dialogues in the trailers with dumbfuck Marvel grade teenage humor don't feel hopeful either. I seriously suspect it's gonna be an embarrassing blowout but I'd love to be proven wrong.
 

Tigranes

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I've said several times how shit the game looks. Now that we begin to hear a few more things about the mechanics, I do like stuff like the disguise system they're talking about.


RPG Site:
In the demo we saw today, you showed off the disguise system in your game, I was wondering if there was also any system like Fallout: New Vegas, where certain gear could act as a disguise for entering places owned by different factions?

Leonard Boyarsky: The way the Holographic Shroud works is that once you get an ID cartridge for a certain faction, you can plug it into this device in order to mask your identity temporarily by creating this sort of 3D hologram around you. It works as a sort of timed meter which will slowly drain, but the disguise is lost faster if you run, or shoot at people, things like that. It plays also into the dialogue system as well, you'll have checks you'll need to pass one someone spots you once the meter is out, and I think on the final check you have to actually have two different buffed up dialogue skills in order to maintain the disguise.

RPG Site: So is having that item or ability available to everyone? Or is it like a quest reward or how does that work?

Leonard Boyarsky: Every player will always have it, but the challenge is being able to find the ID cartridges that will work for it, and then of course players with specific builds will be able to make better use of it once they have it. If you enter an area without it, you'll get a notification showing that it's restricted.

RPG Site: And then the player will have to think about where or what quest line might lead to getting an ID card for that area.

Leonard Boyarsky: Exactly.

That's sounds a really good way to make Charisma/Spech based builds present into actual gameplay other than ''normal'' dialogue and their skill checks more frequent so you feel more reward about your choice of build , also make stealth/sneak skills something that isn't as needed, unlike FNV , for no-Kill/pacifist playthougths. But not dumb and unreliable as Fallout 4's Wasteland Whisperer and the Intimidation perks.

Disguises in RPGs so often seem to work in a pretty one-off way, and mechanically shoehorned in. I wonder if having a properly dedicated system here indicates that it's going to play a more consistent part in the gameplay.

It's also an instance where the whole conceit of sci-fi setting in the outer worlds gives us something marginally more original than yet more slow-mo.
 

Dishonoredbr

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I've said several times how shit the game looks. Now that we begin to hear a few more things about the mechanics, I do like stuff like the disguise system they're talking about.


RPG Site:
In the demo we saw today, you showed off the disguise system in your game, I was wondering if there was also any system like Fallout: New Vegas, where certain gear could act as a disguise for entering places owned by different factions?

Leonard Boyarsky: The way the Holographic Shroud works is that once you get an ID cartridge for a certain faction, you can plug it into this device in order to mask your identity temporarily by creating this sort of 3D hologram around you. It works as a sort of timed meter which will slowly drain, but the disguise is lost faster if you run, or shoot at people, things like that. It plays also into the dialogue system as well, you'll have checks you'll need to pass one someone spots you once the meter is out, and I think on the final check you have to actually have two different buffed up dialogue skills in order to maintain the disguise.

RPG Site: So is having that item or ability available to everyone? Or is it like a quest reward or how does that work?

Leonard Boyarsky: Every player will always have it, but the challenge is being able to find the ID cartridges that will work for it, and then of course players with specific builds will be able to make better use of it once they have it. If you enter an area without it, you'll get a notification showing that it's restricted.

RPG Site: And then the player will have to think about where or what quest line might lead to getting an ID card for that area.

Leonard Boyarsky: Exactly.

That's sounds a really good way to make Charisma/Spech based builds present into actual gameplay other than ''normal'' dialogue and their skill checks more frequent so you feel more reward about your choice of build , also make stealth/sneak skills something that isn't as needed, unlike FNV , for no-Kill/pacifist playthougths. But not dumb and unreliable as Fallout 4's Wasteland Whisperer and the Intimidation perks.

Disguises in RPGs so often seem to work in a pretty one-off way, and mechanically shoehorned in. I wonder if having a properly dedicated system here indicates that it's going to play a more consistent part in the gameplay.

It's also an instance where the whole conceit of sci-fi setting in the outer worlds gives us something marginally more original than yet more slow-mo.

For what they shown and said, it seems that a good ammount of thought was put behind the disguise system.

It seems a good tool to infiltrate without being unbalancead or stupid , and it's really limited , depletes fairly quick , so you still need try avoid being on enemies vision even if your in disguise so you don't waste all your skill checks tries in one room, also it's seems that your only able to use in restricted areas.

That's a step up from Fallout New Vegas, not that the bar was ever high.. But still, i think is neat way to avoid the typical slowly move crounched around everywhere to play stealth like most First person RPGs.
 

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It's strange that people either love or hate the style.

I'll need to play it to decide. One thing I hate atm is how powerful lighting is on people's faces, complete complexion change under different lighting. They apparently fixed the NPC transparency we saw in PAX, hope they plan to fix this too, first they'd have to see it as a problem tho.
 

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I don't particularly like the art style but I can get over it. Those atrocious animations are another thing entirely however. That running animation is just
 

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I like the art style its colorful and not taking itself too seriously but those ugly female NPCs... Well seems you can't escape from current year onto the realm of games anymore. :dealwithit: Will skip it anyways until 2020 when I will get patched game on Steam and will be able to make informed decision wherever its worth buying.
 

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Love how it just says "PC Download" and has no indication anywhere that the game is an EGS exclusive. Most places that just say PC Download will say "Requires the Steam Client" for instance somewhere, here is there is absolutely nothing...

So I must assume it will be DRM free.
:troll:
 

cvv

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Love how it just says "PC Download" and has no indication anywhere that the game is an EGS exclusive. Most places that just say PC Download will say "Requires the Steam Client" for instance somewhere, here is there is absolutely nothing...

So I must assume it will be DRM free.

There are loads of DRM-free games on EGS altho they tend to be on the indie side. And TOW is published by Take Two so that's a no go with DRM-free.
 

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Maybe if Boyarsky and Cain worked with another developer team, more talented than Obsidian the game could become a classic. But the uninteresting writing and absolutely shameful artstyle, models, animation etc will ruin it

The mechanics sound nice and in line with Troika design philosophy, but the actual people working to flash it out are not capable of making something exciting
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
Love how it just says "PC Download" and has no indication anywhere that the game is an EGS exclusive. Most places that just say PC Download will say "Requires the Steam Client" for instance somewhere, here is there is absolutely nothing...

So I must assume it will be DRM free.

There are loads of DRM-free games on EGS altho they tend to be on the indie side. And TOW is published by Take Two so that's a no go with DRM-free.
My copy will be drm free
 

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/06/17/the-outer-worlds-preview/

Disguises and slow-mo combat have me itching to visit The Outer Worlds

90


I’ve just seen a game that reminds me of Deus Ex. It’s set in a dystopia where corporations call the shots, and you can approach situations how you see fit. Guards can be persuaded, tricked, intimated or shot. Robots can be hacked. Sewers can be snuck through, if you can first lockpick the entrance.

There are no punks in sight. I’m talking about The Outer Worlds, a first person sci-fi RPG from Obsidian Entertainment. I only got a hands off peek at E3, and one carefully curated slice might not represent the whole cake. But gosh, that slice looked delicious.

We’re in the wild west, but we’re also underground, and also on an alien planet. We’re in the town of Fallbrick and the world of Monarch. It immediately feels very Firefly, an inspiration narrative designer Dan McPhee was quick to point to in our later interview. Fallbrick is yer classic hive of scum and villainy, the E3 presenter tells us, and we’re shopping for a job.



He then immediately dives into how “entire branches of quests might only be available if you have the skills to unlock them”. In the demo, we only manage to pick up a quest by convincing a ‘business’ owner that we’re trustworthy. We could also have threatened to beat her up.

She wants us to deal with a rival’s factory, and she doesn’t care how we do it; we might want to sabotage the factory, or just kill the poor fella. We resolve to decide when we get there.

As we walk, the presenter proffers some lore. We get a bit of background on this particular planet, which was once intended as an earth-like colony. The terraforming went awry, and turned the wildlife bigger and nastier than it has any right to be. Giant mushrooms dot the yellow-specked countryside, and overgrown mantises skirt around the edges of town.



Some entrepreneur managed to buy the whole planet, which lead to the corps not letting anyone on the planet trade. I’m aware that in real life I also ultimately work for a modern day megacorp, but I still enjoyed seeing a company like Microsoft-acquired Obsidian explore the pitfalls of big companies gaining too much power – and couldn’t resist bringing that up with McPhee.

“To be fair, we do try to provide both viewpoints,” he said. “At the start you’re rescued by someone who’s very anti-corporate, but then you go through a town that’s still owned by a corporation. Those people talk about the benefits of that and how cool life is, and you can flip sides and start supporting them instead.”

But there’s no time to dwell on that. We left town, and immediately bumped into some marauders. Our companion vaporises one of them with her special ability, and we shoot the rest. This is our first taste of time-dilation, an ability that lets you slow down time. McPhee describes it as a more active version of VATS shooting from the Fallout games. You can take out people’s limbs to make them crawl or drop their guns. I’d be surprised if I don’t still always end up just shooting at heads, but it’s nice to know I’ll have more options if I get bored.

I’m hoping I won’t. Every gun demonstrated comes in some flavour of laser, plasma or electro-enhanced-bullet. I particularly like the look of a charge up rifle that eliminates most enemies in one hit.

Even better, though, are the situations where you can avoid combat entirely. We approach the factory we’re supposed to dismantle, and look about for the sewers. They’re behind a waterfall, but we can’t pick the entrance’s lock. We head to the front entrance — but we don’t go in guns blazing. Instead, we use our automatic disguise kit to cross into the restricted area. The guards are still suspicious, but they’ll give us a chance to explain ourselves.

One wants to see our papers, but we’re good enough at lying that she buys our story about it being our first day on the job. It crossed my mind that when I play the full game I might run into the Deus Ex problem, where I wind up going back, killing everyone, and hacking everything in order to max out XP. McPhee reassured me that they hand out XP every time you use a skill, so in the demo we could have levelled up by running our mouth.

Disguises have limits, it turns out. Our disguise will run out if we loiter too long, or get interrogated three times, and it’ll get harder to talk out way out of trouble with each encounter. It’s a blend of sneaking and blustering I can get behind, especially when it dovetails with some hacking. We reach a terminal that lets us turn the robo-guards on their human overseers, then fight our way through the ensuing chaos.



At one point, we take enough damage from robots that we get the option to become scared of them. This is the fear system, which lets us choose to make certain enemies permanently tougher to fight, in exchange for a perk point. We weren’t told exactly what perk points do, but I know I’m a sucker for that kind of devil’s bargain. I’ll probably be a gibbering wreck by the end of the game.

When we finally find the man we’re after, he tries to get us to turn on our employer. Though not before first telling us, for some reason, about how much he likes to tuck into more than pork from the “Cysty-pigs” his factory has been farming. Those are pigs that have been engineered to grow bacon-flavoured tumours, and we’re being offered a lifetime supply of the stuff. We could also try to broker a peace between them – though the demo ends before the presenter makes his choice.

I’m in two minds about the humour. It’s a constant presence, and almost every line is tinged with glibness. The dialogue often made me smile, never made me laugh, and sometimes felt awkward when a joke didn’t land. I’m a tad suspicious I’ll find it tiring after longer than a half hour peek, but I’m also hopeful that worry will prove unfounded. If my half hour on Monarch was even vaguely representative of the other Outer Worlds, I know I’ll enjoy exploring them, whether I’m laughing or not.

More previews:

https://kotaku.com/the-outer-worlds-e3-demo-featured-flexible-combat-and-s-1835506991
https://techraptor.net/content/the-outer-worlds-e3-2019-preview
https://www.gamesradar.com/the-outer-worlds-preview-e3-2019/
https://www.keengamer.com/articles/previews/the-outer-worlds-preview-no-laughing-matter/
https://www.gameskinny.com/7llsm/the-outer-worlds-preview-strange-worlds-in-strange-times
https://www.newgamenetwork.com/article/2135/the-outer-worlds-preview-e3-2019/
https://variety.com/2019/gaming/fea...l-ruled-by-choice-and-consequence-1203243415/
https://monstervine.com/2019/06/the...a-familiar-and-far-out-experience-at-e3-2019/
 
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