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

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Am I just going to have to keep repeating that the USSR dystopia was state-capitalist, not communist?
Well if you are going to be technical about it, true communism never existed for the same reasons why Santa Claus land doesn't exist.
 
Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Oct 2, 2018
Messages
17,897
Location
大同
Eh, communism was never really applied (and so its practice cannot be criticized, because there hasn't been any practice), while current capitalism is the best that capitalism could have ever been, and therefore it is a POS, right? How convenient.
Command economies have been applied, so you can criticize them. You're just being obtuse about learning the terminology employed by Marx, Engels & co.
 

jf8350143

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Messages
1,277
Correct me if I'm wrong but the way I see it is that the financial success of TOW is mostly due to:

1. slow releases right now

2. anti-Bethesda current right now due to F76 being complete and utter garbage.

Is anyone/game critic with a balanced mind and clear rhetoric actually endorsing this game?

"Slow releases right now", the game releases on the same day as the newest COD.
 

Bad Sector

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Messages
2,223
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The Parvati storyline is just... banal teenage stuff. The storyline would be enormously more interesting if it would be revealed that the reason Parvati is asexual is because she was raped and molested by her father, who everyone thinks was a good guy. That would be dark and shocking, and would have some gravitas to make the player feel *something* towards the character.

Eh, i think the "raped by father" is a bit too overused nowadays as a socking plot. It was interesting the first 2-3 times but by now it has become a cliche and the entire "rape as backstory" is a trope common enough to have its own tvtrope page.

If there was a better storyline with Parvati IMO that would be something else entirely.

(warning: fanfic quality writing follows :-P)

For example i found it weird that both Parvati and Junlei got interested at each other at first sight (i can sort of accept Parvati since she's naive and has already idolized Junlei - though it'd still feel shallow - but Junlei is the center of an entire spaceship that also acts as a "melting pot" for the rest of the colony, she should have way more experience than Parvati).

So instead of that, a different setup could have been that Junlei needs help with the ship's maintenance (already a thing with the radiators that need fixing) and you agree to let Parvati stay a while at Groundbreaker (you'd lose her as a companion for a bit). Then she'd give you side quests that have to do with the ship's needs for stuff that the Board refuses to give them access to (again a thing with the story) - these would still be fed-ex quests, but they'd actually make sense considering the unique situation the Groundbreaker is in. During that time she may hint about her affection towards Junlei (them working together and developing a relationship would IMO make more sense this way) and perhaps even give you a couple of quests like those that already exist (like the casserole or whatever) but at a later point. Then when that sidestory has ended Parvati would return.

This approach could also be made to follow C&C by having your actions in these side quests affect Parvati and Junlei's relationship. Parvati may be knowledgeable, but she's inexperienced - especially when it comes to spaceships (already mentioned in the game and more than once). When she asks you for something, you could be presented with two possibilities and depending on which you choose you may affect Parvati's performance and how Junlei would perceive her. For example she may not know about something and asks you to find her a manual about the topic. You could find that manual in some abandoned lab full of mantiqueens (or whatever) *or* you could ask the SubLight lady about it (either option would be mentioned to you luch as asking some vendor about it). The abandoned lab would have the good manual, the SubLight lady will have you run an errand to some asteroid or whatever that she needs to fuel/confirm some of her suspicions which also happens to be the lab of someone who worked on That Stuff (=whatever Parvati needs) so he probably has the manual too. As it happens the manual is a copy that someone made by hand from the original (because he arrogantly thought he knew better, also fits with the loony scientists the game has - whatever place you visit could also be the result of his hubris) that has bad/wrong/missing information. That latter makes Parvati do some stupid thing that gives a bad impression for Junlei (in that she doesn't trust Parvati to handle stuff so she doesn't pay much attention to her or even gets annoyed by her), which may end up with the two not getting together.

Of course you could also sabotage her (put space laxatives in the casserole) after the fact because that is always fun :-P.

Well anyway, i'm a programmer not a writer so none of the above may be a good idea, but i think the whole sidestory could have been done in a very different way that didn't felt like "teen drama" as you put it, while still having the overall end result (Parvati and Junlei ending up together - or not, depending on your actions).
 

Goliath

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 18, 2004
Messages
17,830
What kind of person thinks The Outer Worlds is a great game? This kind:

Keep this in mind whenever you engage a TOW apologist here. This is the kind of person you are probably talking to.

"Bloody brilliant!", "Sublime writing!" :lol:
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
Correct me if I'm wrong but the way I see it is that the financial success of TOW is mostly due to:

1. slow releases right now

2. anti-Bethesda current right now due to F76 being complete and utter garbage.

Is anyone/game critic with a balanced mind and clear rhetoric actually endorsing this game?

"Slow releases right now", the game releases on the same day as the newest COD.
Ahh is it successful? I mean,i see a lot of twitch and youtube roaches that shill about it,but that doesn't mean it sold well.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
Well, I tried...

This game is... just bleh.

First of all, it suffers from the same shit as Divinity games, too much fucking pointless humor. Humor is OK in games, it can even be great, but when the game refuses to take itself seriously and injects cheap humor into EVERYTHING, it marginalizes the time spent in it by the player. Why the fuck should I spend tens of hours in your dumbass game if the game itself thinks it's a fucking joke? Every single character is straight out of a cartoon, and everything has the depth of some cheap budget movie. Fallout was never like this, and New Vegas was a much more serious game.

Then there are the everpresent quest compasses, even worse than in Bethesda games, since they are actually displayed in the game world (in bethesda games it was a compass). So just turn your brain off, and follow the cue. Absolutely kills any kind of exploration, if there was any to begin with, with the pseudo-linear maps.

The character development and perks are also pretty retarded. 3 tiers of this shit, and I think I could see like one or two I was interested in. Fallout 1 and 2 had a ton of awesome perks, and Vegas had some.

Well, the "old master" shitshow continues unabated.
 

Nano

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,647
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
https://www.reddit.com/r/theouterwo..._am_jonathan_jt_silver_actor_voice_actor_and/



Edit: Goddamn, Felix's voice actor is a hottie.

2lJtda5.jpg
 
Last edited:

Hellion

Arcane
Joined
Feb 5, 2013
Messages
1,582
This Jonathan Silver guy might be the best dude in the world for all I know, but Felix might easily be one of the most forgettable NPCs in the game for me. I didn't even bother to do his personal quest on my first playthrough.

PS. The GPS markers can be turned off from the Settings menu. You can also get rid of the compass altogether by turning off the entire HUD. They should probably have added more options that allow people to selectively turn off HUD components rather than "everything on/everything off".

Edit. Just checked and saw that turning off the HUD even removes your crosshair lol.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
Which one looks better? Found a "Neutral colors LUT" file for the game that someone made, it's on the Nexus:

Default game colors:
TOWDefaultColors.png


"Neutral colors" LUT table file for Reshade, downloaded from Nexus:
TOWReShadeLUTNeutral.png


EDIT: here's another scene

Default colors:
TOWDefaultColors2.png


Neutral:
TOWReShadeLUTNeutral2.png
 
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Adon

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2015
Messages
667
I've only made it to Groundbreaker so far, and did a few side quests there and these are my impressions so far:

Good:

- Environments are visually distinct, and they stand out among other games from which TOW is consistently compared to. It's distinct yet unified as there's consistency with the way everything looks.
- As far of companions go, Vicar Max and Parvati seem to be well-written, and their backgrounds are deeply embedded into the world of TOW. In this sense, the Vicar is the best one currently. I've only just met Felix and Ellie. As other have mentioned, it is nice to see them interject into conversations with NPCs.
- I don't see the constant jokes that people claim to be seeing. There's a certain amount of dry humor which stays in line with the cold, stern and cynical backdrop of being in corporate-run colonies that they're trying to portray, but I think people are conflating the one-note VA delivery from most characters with snark and sarcasm. Point being, I don't think it's overdone as it's part of the tone.
- Groundbreaker has been excellent so far. There was an immediate noticeable change in the variety of the quests in here compared to Edgewater.
- Dig that locations are hubs instead of doing a big, open-world.

Bad:
- RPG systems are just window dressing. There's barely any difference in the builds you're able to do because you can already pretty much do everything with your character. This would be okay if they didn't bother doing a perk system that seems more of an after-thought than anything.
- Basic, generic perks
- Skills that don't have big enough of an impact on gameplay i.e. Defense is useless unless you use melee. The abilities you get from skill thresholds don't seem to be all that interesting either.
- Loot is bad, and I'm amazed that anyone would think this RNG type of loot is anything that fans of New Vegas would want. Even Fallout 4 was better about it.
- Weapons that utilize the light ammo seem useless thus far, the only weapon to be worth any salt seems to be the light machine gun.

Ugly:

- Edgewater isn't the greatest starting area, but I can certainly think of worse ones. So far my biggest gripe with Edgewater is that all the sidequests were nothing but fetch quests. I was delivering more mail than the courier in New Vegas.
- The voice acting is a mixed bag. Sometimes the deadpan delivery works for some characters, sometimes it doesn't. There was a moment with Adeilade where she mentions she doesn't want her flock to see her in anger and the proceeds to every so slightly raise her voice, and for a second, it's almost as if she was about to emote.
- Colors. Now this is kind of mixed because I think their art direction and use of color is nice, but (at least on Edgewater) it can be really hard to sometimes see. It's difficult to explain, but certain areas lack a certain sense of depth because of how colors bleed together. I don't know if there is a technical art term for it, but it is as if they didn't contrast their colors well enough to make the environment pop in the right way.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
So far my biggest gripe with Edgewater is that all the sidequests were nothing but fetch quests.
this dont get better later either. the gameplay loop are basically fallout 4's that "go there, take this / kill that then have several dialogue choices to who give the items too" and tbh the quest givers are one note characters that are basically quest dispenser with few lines to their characters.

it have better choices than F4 sure, but it isn't really something they seem like put too much effort on either
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
Man, the frequent stutters/hiccups that happen whenever you're walking around and some new asset or texture is streamed is really killing the fun for me.

:/
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2019
Messages
1,307
Man, the frequent stutters/hiccups that happen whenever you're walking around and some new asset or texture is streamed is really killing the fun for me.

:/
It's a known issue with the engine and i wouldn't expect a fix.. ever.
 

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