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

Black

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2007
Messages
1,872,593
Restarted the game for a supernova run, and I noticed there's something even more useless than the perks. The aptitudes. They give things like +1 skill, I mean, what's the point of something insignificant like 1/10 of a level-up anyways?
The aptitudes were meant to be a joke that seemingly went over many people's heads.
Are the perks supposed to be jokes too with their super interesting +3% x?
 

Hot Coldman

Educated
Joined
Jul 28, 2017
Messages
90
Stop consuming RPGs legit made for sheep.
This was made for anyone and everyone.
It's not a Disco Elysium withdrawal. I
happened to pass on that one but I also see
this: Obsidian's safe RPG for bucks. Its
themes are shallow, streamers are loving it.
Streamers are loving it.Let that sink in.

And then there's Californiagirl and Nyoka.
Pushing diversity hard

Now stop playing this tripe and Start playing Sandy Petersen's CALL of CTHULHU or
MYFAROG instead, OR a good open world RPG like Morrowind
 

Zboj Lamignat

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Messages
5,523
Restarted the game for a supernova run, and I noticed there's something even more useless than the perks. The aptitudes. They give things like +1 skill, I mean, what's the point of something insignificant like 1/10 of a level-up anyways?
The aptitudes were meant to be a joke that seemingly went over many people's heads.
I think the reason it went over people's heads is because it's pretty much self-conscious
poQxTe3.jpg

and it's, like, ironic, man.
 

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,124
these maps looks pretty simplistic

They definitely are from a top-down view, but the way I would describe it, is that maps do a good job pretending to be more complex than they are actually are. A hidden passage under pipe, a hidden ladder allowing to sneak up a level and past enemies, strategically locked doors that require looking for different paths unless you can pass a skill check, things like that. Interior design people have done a great job. I'm with rusty_shackleford that hopefully DLCs add more space stations/dungeons because they're consistently the best part of the game.
the only one it is used so far is the pork factory king quest and it was done really well. one of the best quest in the game IMO.

but otherwise you're just going into raider or animal lairs that made multiple entrances redundant. the problem is the lack of teeth in the factioning system so far. they really never go against each other truly. i haven't finished the game yet, but so far stuff like spacer's choice and deserters, the groundbreaker vs board, iconoclast vs MSI and sublight, etc. they hint of a brewing conflict but never do anything. it's dull.

maybe it will come up later. i am about to go the devil's peak in monarch.

new vegas have had this since the beginning. goodsprings vs powder gangers, the silver feather in the strip, etc.
MSI vs Iconoclast can lead to all out conflict. If you give targeting system to MSI - dozens of iconoclasts (including their leaders) start to attack MSI. It feels like the ruins around MSI were specifically designed with that in mind, especially the church where the final confrontation happens.

MSI vs. Iconoclast had some cool reactivity to it.

I try to make peace between the two factions. First I get MSI on board. Then I head to Iconoclast and in previous conversation with Graham, the leader, I encouraged his religious bullshit for the lulz. So now the Iconoclast 2nd in command wouldn't work with me because she thought I'm a religious lunatic much like her boss. Peace was impossible, so I ended up siding with Iconoclasts and storming the MSI with them.

maybe "post disco elysium" syndrome is real

Post-disco elysium was definitely a thing for me. Every video game would look pale when played instantly after the best written RPG in decades and it's also hard to immediately switch your brain from DE depressing themes into a snarky comedy.
 

Daidre

Arcane
Joined
Jan 30, 2019
Messages
1,975
Location
Samara
Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
it should've been a proper mechanic instead of some lame joke.

At the same time every option in aptitudes list has 2-3 voiced "funny" comments from Dr when you pick it. So if you hadn't got a joke from the first click they would hammer it again and again.
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
these maps looks pretty simplistic

They definitely are from a top-down view, but the way I would describe it, is that maps do a good job pretending to be more complex than they are actually are. A hidden passage under pipe, a hidden ladder allowing to sneak up a level and past enemies, strategically locked doors that require looking for different paths unless you can pass a skill check, things like that. Interior design people have done a great job. I'm with rusty_shackleford that hopefully DLCs add more space stations/dungeons because they're consistently the best part of the game.
the only one it is used so far is the pork factory king quest and it was done really well. one of the best quest in the game IMO.

but otherwise you're just going into raider or animal lairs that made multiple entrances redundant. the problem is the lack of teeth in the factioning system so far. they really never go against each other truly. i haven't finished the game yet, but so far stuff like spacer's choice and deserters, the groundbreaker vs board, iconoclast vs MSI and sublight, etc. they hint of a brewing conflict but never do anything. it's dull.

maybe it will come up later. i am about to go the devil's peak in monarch.

new vegas have had this since the beginning. goodsprings vs powder gangers, the silver feather in the strip, etc.
MSI vs Iconoclast can lead to all out conflict. If you give targeting system to MSI - dozens of iconoclasts (including their leaders) start to attack MSI. It feels like the ruins around MSI were specifically designed with that in mind, especially the church where the final confrontation happens.

MSI vs. Iconoclast had some cool reactivity to it.

I try to make peace between the two factions. First I get MSI on board. Then I head to Iconoclast and in previous conversation with Graham, the leader, I encouraged his religious bullshit for the lulz. So now the Iconoclast 2nd in command wouldn't work with me because she thought I'm a religious lunatic much like her boss. Peace was impossible, so I ended up siding with Iconoclasts and storming the MSI with them.
That piece of "reactivity" was really dumb in my opinion. There is a conflict between zoro and leader of iconoclasts because zoro is more pragmatic and wants the leader to care more about troops well-being (like having more food, medicine, not sending them on dangerous and pointless missions and etc) and the leader is more ideological and ready to sacrifice people and their well-being in order to spread his ideas in hopes that it will attract more followers.
There is one interaction between zoro and leader with regards to a quest where you can chose what provisions to order. The leaders asks you to order some paper for their pamphlets while zoro wants you to order some food and medicine (she does it by nagging when you are talking with quest giver and then fucks off without even talking to you about it again).
During the quests I've chosen to order paper instead of food, so zoro got pissed.
So, when given an opportunity to make a peace with msi and become the leader she says you must fuck off, not because she believes what icnoclast leader believes, but basically because she is pissed at you for following Iconoclast leader orders (which she also continues to do). She says you have wrong priorities and is easily swindled by other people (you were swindled by iconoclast leader into doing what he asked you instead of doing what she wants). And then decides to go get her people slaughetered by MSI troops.... Also, during the whole time she doesn't really have confrontation with Iconoclasts leaders, she only nags, but don't try to take his place of refuse to do his orders. But she is angry at you because you do as the leader of Iconoclasts say...
 
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Van-d-all

Erudite
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Messages
1,557
Location
Standin' pretty. In this dust that was a city.
it should've been a proper mechanic instead of some lame joke.

At the same time every option in aptitudes list has 2-3 voiced "funny" comments from Dr when you pick it. So if you hadn't got a joke from the first click they would hammer it again and again.
I have R&M noise filter in my brain, so I stopped listening to him somewhere mid intro.
 

RickOmbo

Learned
Joined
May 24, 2019
Messages
221
Larians: We can't hold our jokes.
Nubsidia: We need to crack at least one joke every five minutes.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,660
I thought she was responsible for the writing in WM and I thought that was largely solid.

Again calling on Roguey to bless us with his insight.

White March was written by Fenstermaker with an assist from Patel. She wrote the Devil of Caroc and the very-poorly received Maneha. She's also responsible for the infamous "Wow, your bigotry is showing" line from Deadfire. Apparently Avellone liked her book, but I read a bit of it and didn't like it https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-go-to-new-thread.119594/page-96#post-5921621

Also evergreen reminder https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-go-to-new-thread.119594/page-98#post-5921825
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,075
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!

Those blasts from the past are great. Like for example this one:

Ah I see we've arrived at the inevitable "bitch about millennial female writers" part of this game's lifecycle. Might as well get it over with.

But look, this isn't a thing that's going to go away. In fact it's going to get worse. And it's not really about California. Look at the demographics. Which of the two sexes reads more books today? Which one earns more college degrees, especially in literature and the humanities?

We're not going to return to the era where most of an Obsidian RPG's writers were overeducated dudes who were born in the 1970s and played Planescape: Torment in college. That generation has moved on. You should actually expect majority-female or even all-female RPG writing teams to be the norm in the future.

Look at Infinitron, never thought of him as :outrage:
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,660
TOW ended up being half-women/half-soymen in terms of writing staff anyway. Starks/Dollarhyde/Patel, Kirsch/Poddar/McPhee.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2019
Messages
1,307
The problem is not that women write games. They can write fantastic stories. The problem is when writers suffer from the "valley girl syndrome". You don't have to be a woman to suffer from this syndrome either.
  • Writing games for your echo-chamber at the expense of others.
  • Masking white, middle-class Americans in minority "covers" and calling it Diversity. No character in TOW is anything but white, middle-class American.
  • Adopting a holier-than-thou attitude towards critics without even understanding their points.
  • Being from California.
 

Van-d-all

Erudite
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Messages
1,557
Location
Standin' pretty. In this dust that was a city.
Masking white, middle-class Americans in minority "covers" and calling it Diversity. No character in TOW is anything but white, middle-class American.

White middle class progressive American or an extremely shallow projection of their feelings on some other group.
Pretty much boils down to
3816Lzs.jpg
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
RPG Codex : Josh Sawyer ruins games by making everything perfectly balanced

Also RPG Codex: some TOW weapons and builds are better than others, what the fuck?

It is easy to misrepresent what "the Codex" thinks.
almost as if codex isn't some kind of hivemind.
he's simply trolling, and poorly.

at current state of the game, there are no builds to talk about. you can kill anything perfectly fine with 0 in gun skills. the only skills which somewhat change the game state are Dialog, and you can often do with just one of them being high.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,660
You guys are overlooking Nitai Poddar, but that's all right, he's practically an Italian anyway.
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,075
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
The problem is not that women write games. They can write fantastic stories.

Sure they can. But their style is generally different. There are already algorithms that can identify the writer's gender, it's so well defined. (Btw finally a way to determine if there are any actual women on Codex).

I wouldn't say women can write fantastic "stories" per say, not in terms of plot structure, pace, action and high-concept themes. But they far surpass men when it comes to finegrained character studies, societal interactions etc., as you'd expect.

Hence they're actually well suited to writing RPGs, at least things like companions, dialogues etc., the connection tissue between the big blocks.

So you're both right and wrong. First, the problem with TOW companions isn't that they're written by women. It's that they're written by third-rate hacks who've never been told they suck and should find a job in a cubicle making coffee instead. Because in the coastal America everyone is special, everyone is a champ.

But second, the main problem with TOW's overarching themes being so vapid, lame and low-concept absolutely IS gender.
 
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