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

[Whisper]

this turd

not turd
it sounds like the standard Outer Worlds experience, bro


i.e. it is worse than turd

 

[DalekFlay]

Anyone knows release date on steam for it. It will be october 2020 ?

It's DRM free, so you could download it and never touch Epic's launcher again if that's your issue. If you just wants it on the Steams no matter what though, then that doesn't help.

 

[kangaxx]

I'd love to play a game portraying a society controlled fully by a corporation, without any standard gubermint laws or regulation, in a smart, rational and credible way. ToW doesn't even come close to it.

The original Deus Ex had a stab at it tbh (although obviously the veneer of government was there). The difference was the writing in that game mostly showed rather than told, which is the absolute reverse of TOW. You should see Cyberpunk attempt it, but who knows how that'll turn out.

Anyway the show vs. tell seems to be a common difference between modern writing and that of twenty years ago (both game and films/TV). Another example is something like The Last of Us 2 really ramming home the "revenge bad" message, whilst simultaneously removing the player's element of agency/element of discovery in the matter.

 

[cvv]

You should see Cyberpunk attempt it, but who knows how that'll turn out.

I know. It'll turn out the same way all the 1980s cyberpunk is. But it's not a credible stateless corporate dystopia, it's how leftists imagine it. It's about as credible as leftist fantasies about a society with no corporations and only the government, i.e. socialism.

 

[coldcrow]

This is 100% fair, but in a genre dominated by endless, endless Tolkien copying and pasting I don't think Outer Worlds stands out as particularly egregious. At least its weird, whimsical corporate authoritarianism vibe is somewhat unique.

It's unique in its utter lack of imagination. This is not a corporate dictatorship, they just copied standard totalitarian tropes, took the "socialism" label down and wrote "korpret" with crayons instead.

I'd love to play a game portraying a society controlled fully by a corporation, without any standard gubermint laws or regulation, in a smart, rational and credible way. ToW doesn't even come close to it.

Smart, rational and credible are not the first things coming to mind when I hear "corporation". It's pretty much the same in any hierarchy - be it a corp, the state or the church, people rise until they hit their post of incompetence and usually stay there.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

And indeed it seemed to have started the whole "read this log because all NPCs are already dead when you arrive" cliche, except if SS1 did this beforehand, which I never played...

Some logs in SS2 were genuinely good. Like, the scientist who ended up in the Body of the Many and kept his scientific work until the end. Or descend to the madness of Von Braun's captain. The couple who were talking about escape and indeed managed to do it in the last pod right before your eyes. I dunno if any of the TOW logs are of same quality.

 

[DalekFlay]

Kotaku with an article today about how the ending options are too morally grey and depressing.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Kotaku with an article today about how the ending options are too morally grey and depressing.

They're probably still mourning the loss of Kotaku UK, or as it's known, Kotaku Who Cares

It's also Ethan Gach who wrote the review, who embodies all the worthlessness that Kotaku represents. When he started waxing poetic about the inhumanity of cigarettes and corporate malfeasance in an attempt to make a point and elevate something you're not supposed to be elevating because - shocker - it's not a political game. Sorry, Ethan.

Thank god they don't give a score, even less of a reason for anyone to care about their opinion. He'll probably love Bloodlines 2, though.

 

[kangaxx]

Kotaku with an article today about how the ending options are too morally grey and depressing.

They're probably still mourning the loss of Kotaku UK, or as it's known, Kotaku Who Cares

Had no idea they'd gone done the swanny. That has perked up my morning, thanks.

 

[Avarize]

You should see Cyberpunk attempt it, but who knows how that'll turn out.

I know. It'll turn out the same way all the 1980s cyberpunk is. But it's not a credible stateless corporate dystopia, it's how leftists imagine it. It's about as credible as leftist fantasies about a society with no corporations and only the government, i.e. socialism.

Any completely ancap society would have corporations paying much more attention that their employees/citizens stay loyal, in ways both malign and benign. And they definitely wouldn't go about in ways that tank productivity, like only feeding people tuna or something on the first planet of the base game.

 

[cvv]

Any completely ancap society would have corporations paying much more attention that their employees/citizens stay loyal, in ways both malign and benign. And they definitely wouldn't go about in ways that tank productivity, like only feeding people tuna or something on the first planet of the base game.

Yes, and I suspect those would be only two of the many important differences between socialism and ancap.

Altho you might argue a planet owned by a single corporation - without the moderating forces of competition - could indeed be similar to the good ol' socialist "paradise".

For every dictator the key is to keep people from escaping their slave camp. Socialists had barbed wires and mine fields and guard towers on the borders. I suppose a planetary corporate dictator would try to keep people inside with knotted contracts and debt traps. (ToW might even hint at some of it, dunno, couldn't bear playing this dogshit for more than 2 hours).

 

[Ranarama]

I'd love to play a game portraying a society controlled fully by a corporation, without any standard gubermint laws or regulation, in a smart, rational and credible way.

Wouldn't happen. Once society is controlled you get regulatory capture, and you have regulations, just ones that favor the corps.

 

[DalekFlay]

Any completely ancap society would have corporations paying much more attention that their employees/citizens stay loyal, in ways both malign and benign. And they definitely wouldn't go about in ways that tank productivity, like only feeding people tuna or something on the first planet of the base game.

The game is not trying to be realistic at all. That's not its tone, and it shouldn't be judged for failing at something it's not at all trying to do. It's more of a Terry Gilliam allegory world than a "realistic" one in any way.

 

[cvv]

Any completely ancap society would have corporations paying much more attention that their employees/citizens stay loyal, in ways both malign and benign. And they definitely wouldn't go about in ways that tank productivity, like only feeding people tuna or something on the first planet of the base game.

The game is not trying to be realistic at all. That's not its tone, and it shouldn't be judged for failing at something it's not at all trying to do. It's more of a Terry Gilliam allegory world than a "realistic" one in any way.

Dude, alegory IS realistic. It's building on and pointing at something real. That's the whole point.

ToW is failing precisely at that - it thinks it's an alegory while in reality it's just a pile of shit because it portrays nothing real, just childish fantasies of brain-addled, know-nothing Californian millenials.

 

[DalekFlay]

Dude, alegory IS realistic.

 

[KVVRR]

And they definitely wouldn't go about in ways that tank productivity, like only feeding people tuna or something on the first planet of the base game.

It was space rats and wooden chips/garbage, actually. The reason they did this was because they couldn't grow any other food and (I suppose) the local fauna was toxic, that's what the "plague" that the first town is suffering from actually is. They're just too dumb or brainwashed to even understand what malnutrition is.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The lack of companies spiking employee drinking water with amphetamines is disturbing

 

[Tyranicon]

I'm honestly tired of old and improbable premises such as megacorps taking over nation-state roles (why? there's no profit in it). This is why Warhammer 40k is such a good setting, because it's laughably absurd (mankind ruled by an unflinching douche-bag theocracy that hates everything), and it fucking works.

We need more of those settings, please.

 

[cvv]

I'm honestly tired of old and improbable premises such as megacorps taking over nation-state roles

This vision of corporate dystopia, first presented by Gibson's Neuromancer, and parroted by games like ToW is obviously just a childish leftist fairytale.

But there are genuinely interesting visions of a future where nation-states have been supplanted as anachronistic, irrelevant entities, by various other societal arrangements. One of the smartest ones is described in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, one of the best SF novels ever written. Wish someone made a game based on that.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

This vision of corporate dystopia, first presented by Gibson's Neuromancer, and parroted by games like ToW is obviously just a childish leftist fairytale.

But there are genuinely interesting visions of a future where nation-states have been supplanted as anachronistic, irrelevant entities, by various other societal arrangements. One of the smartest ones is described in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, one of the best SF novels ever written. Wish someone made a game based on that.

I feel like there's a distance measured in lightyears between Neuromancer and Outer Worlds's Futurama-derived corporate dystopia, which not surprisingly, is almost exactly the distance between great writing with nuance and shit writing that comes packaged with bricks to hit the reader over the head with.

Futurama is not to blame, the execution of the homage to Futurama is what's painful.

Stephenson's good, but needs an editor. Loved Snow Crash if only for the practice of tattooing crimes on one's forehead.

 

[Tyranicon]

This vision of corporate dystopia, first presented by Gibson's Neuromancer, and parroted by games like ToW is obviously just a childish leftist fairytale.

But there are genuinely interesting visions of a future where nation-states have been supplanted as anachronistic, irrelevant entities, by various other societal arrangements. One of the smartest ones is described in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, one of the best SF novels ever written. Wish someone made a game based on that.

I feel like there's a distance measured in lightyears between Neuromancer and Outer Worlds's Futurama-derived corporate dystopia, which not surprisingly, is almost exactly the distance between great writing with nuance and shit writing that comes packaged with bricks to hit the reader over the head with.

Futurama is not to blame, the execution of the homage to Futurama is what's painful.

Stephenson's good, but needs an editor. Loved Snow Crash if only for the practice of tattooing crimes on one's forehead.

Stephenson has a ton of great ideas and loves to talk through them. I'm not a huge fan of his writing style, but he's someone I keep an eye on.

 

[commie]

I'm honestly tired of old and improbable premises such as megacorps taking over nation-state roles (why? there's no profit in it). This is why Warhammer 40k is such a good setting, because it's laughably absurd (mankind ruled by an unflinching douche-bag theocracy that hates everything), and it fucking works.

We need more of those settings, please.

I dunno...East India Company was pretty much a 'megacorp' that was a kind of nation state in itself ruling over vast areas of India. The Outer Worlds with the planets being colonised by similar types of entities and then morphing into 'nation states' is a plausible enough idea. The problem is the execution is so glib and without nuance and it just makes it into a caricature with no subtlety, just evil profiteers for teh lulz.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Futrama is basically Outer Worlds done correctly tbh.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Futrama is basically Outer Worlds done correctly tbh.

Agreed. It's really kind of embarrassing-in-a-cover-your-eyes-and-shake-your-head way to "our inspirational source material!" to do a weaker version of it and then dilute it with Borderlands, but there you go.

Homage away!

 

[Flou]

DLC typically has nothing but skeleton crew working on them. It shouldn't take 10 months for six hours though. 10 months is enough for expansion-sized content. Dead Money was released two months after New Vegas, Honest Hearts five months after that, Old World Blues two months after that, Lonesome Road two months after that. It took the Perils of Gorgon team the same amount of time to make one six hour DLC as the time it took the New Vegas team to make four five-to-six-hour DLCs.

Oh and lest you think this is a "Chris Avellone is a fast writer" thing, Bethesda released five 3-5 hour Fallout 3 DLCs and one five-hour, one fifteen-hour, and one seventeen-hour Fallout 4 DLC in the same amount of time.

Corona virus surely delayed the release by a month or two, like it has done with pretty much every game so far. If you compare Outer Worlds to FNV. FNV was done in a hurry in the first place, so them making the DLCs in a rapid pace "fits" the release schedule Bethesda mandated. At least some of the FNV DLCs could have done with more Q&A. Not sure how bug free Gorgon is.

How experienced is the team working on the DLC? If it's a junior/inexperienced crew working on it, that could easily add another month.

I don't think writing speed is an issue here. You should have the content ready and locked when the team starts working on it as the development cycle can't really afford long pauses or scratching some of the content because their ideas just didn't work.