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

[Mr. Hiver]

Was there anything more specific about the flaws? I kept drifting out of the conversation.

 

[yolu]

Why do people care so much about armor slots in a first-person game?

 

[Kem0sabe]

What they say and what really is, are often two very different things. I figure that codexers would be savy to that.

Remember when obsidian was promising vastly improved loading times in deadfire only to fuck it up later?

Until now, the truth is only what they have shown, shit combat, shit dialogue, shit graphics, and absolutely no charscter development screens. Until they show more and better, then it's all bullshit coming out of their mouths.

 

[Quillon]

Bit of an insight into Leonard's design philosophy. Passing a dialogue skill check MUST benefit the player. You invested points into the skill so you deserve a reward.

Typically lying to an NPC requires you to pass a skill check. Tim wanted there to be a Flaw where if you lied to people too many times, you'd have the option to take a Flaw that would force you to ALWAYS lie to people. But Leonard said, if lying is always beneficial then how is that a flaw?

What's the timestamp for it? I understood it as if you meet the skill requirement, you pass it, NPC believes your lie, no different than Sawyer's design , "deterministic" was it?


As far as RPG systems/features go, TOW seems to be a step back from Deadfire, writing/story will be the deciding factor.

Tho NPC schedules is huge for "bethesda experience", even Warhorse prioritized it with KCD, could be the biggest disappointment.

 

[Roguey]

They can always say they're going for the Morrowind experience.

 

[Jenkem]

or they could just avoid comparing it to bethestard shit entirely

 

[Yosharian]

Anti-dyke mod... what?

A mod to make the fugly female companions attractive, as they are the purposely "uglified" in many RPGs due to a backwards ideological crusade (SJWism).

Just read this thread if you want to know more. The subject always gets Infinitron's panties in a bunch, so he would move any discussion about it to that thread anyway.

I can't read that thread until I'm a big boy =p

 

[Sigourn]

Anti-dyke mod... what?

A mod to make the fugly female companions attractive, as they are the purposely "uglified" in many RPGs due to a backwards ideological crusade (SJWism).

Just read this thread if you want to know more. The subject always gets Infinitron's panties in a bunch, so he would move any discussion about it to that thread anyway.

What makes you think NPCs aren't purposely "prettified" in RPGs due to corporate pressures than all NPCs must be beautiful? Sawyer himself admitted in the past that the generic male action hero ends up like that because designers are forced to choose the "less offensive" design.

 

[Yosharian]

Anti-dyke mod... what?

A mod to make the fugly female companions attractive, as they are the purposely "uglified" in many RPGs due to a backwards ideological crusade (SJWism).

Just read this thread if you want to know more. The subject always gets Infinitron's panties in a bunch, so he would move any discussion about it to that thread anyway.

What makes you think NPCs aren't purposely "prettified" in RPGs due to corporate pressures than all NPCs must be beautiful? Sawyer himself admitted in the past that the generic male action hero ends up like that because designers are forced to choose the "less offensive" design.

Most people like looking at beautiful characters. It's called escapism.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

No mention of whether quests will be designed without quest markers (explicit directions, road signs, making logical conclusions of where people are, etc.)?

https://youtu.be/I9ptiP6SOSQ?t=998

I wouldn't bet on it.

Hold up, people keep acting like Tim & Leonard said you won’t be able to turn off quest markers. This is not true.

Edited for clarity:

In fact, when asked they were very enthusiastic about the idea and said that it’s possible. Leonard said they would test it. He explained that the only reason they might not include the option is if it makes the game play terribly, but even then they might include it with some kind of warning that disabling quest markers is not recommended.

So will we be able to disable quest markers and will the game still be playable? Maybe. It sounds like they’re going to make testing it a priority. Tim Cain’s face practically lit up while they were discussing the possibility of removing quest markers. He made it clear that there’s no technical barrier to removing quest markers, then Leonard piped in about the gameplay.

tl;dr Tim and Leonard want to give you the option to remove quest markers. The game is playable from start to finish. They are going to remove the markers and try playing TOW without them to see whether or not it works. If it plays ok without quest markers, they will give you the option to disable them. For the moment, they don’t know either way.

Also, it sure sounds like they’ve got their shit together more than the usual Obsidian game, at least if TOW is coming out in August.

 

[jewboy]

Wow. That's an interesting thread. Such a rare thing on the codex. I wish I were not riding the hype train for this game but I can't help it. Choo choo choo...clickity-clack. I am a pessimist at heart but this seems to at least have some possibility of being a very interesting game.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Boyarsky's approach to dialogue skills is rather anti-Sawyer, then again so was Deadfire's.

Have you played Deadfire yet?

 

[HoboForEternity]

no option to turn off quest marker and no reason not to.

gonna be skyrim shit GPS galore

 

[Arulan]

Turning off quest markers means very little if the game wasn't designed with that in mind. I continue to hope RPG designers take inspiration from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Gothic, and recently Kingdom Come: Deliverance for how invested a player becomes in a world where they have to figure things out for themselves in a logical manner. Of course, some people will still never find Caius Cosades.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Kyl Von Kull yeah they are testing it, but since it is so late in the development, that means most if not all of the game are designed with the markers in mind. big possibility no hints, direction embedded in the dialogue nor visual cues scattered in the world exist.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Kyl Von Kull yeah they are testing it, but since it is so late in the development, that means most if not all of the game are designed with the markers in mind. big possibility no hints, direction embedded in the dialogue nor visual cues scattered in the world exist.

They haven’t started taping the voice acting or finished preparing the script for localization. I don’t know how hard it would be to add in some lines giving the player directions, or add some visual cues, but it might not be a huge change. This is not an open world game so it’s not like the directions would even need to be that good. The release is allegedly four odd months away—Deadfire didn’t even have its attribute system finalized four months from release.

And, again, Tim and Leonard’s faces lit up with childlike glee as they considered the possibility of disabling quest markers and/or giving you the option to get rid of nearly everything in the HUD.

 

[HoboForEternity]

ah well, i guess we will know when we see it. i hope you are right tho

 

[Zombra]

First person character with no feet? I'm confused, what year is this?

Options to turn off quest markers and indeed most of the HUD? OK, I'll trade my feet for that.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

You gotta laugh at people begging for ability to turn off quest markers, knowing all well they will never actually turn them off because it will make the game absolutely miserable.

 

[vortex]

First person character with no feet? I'm confused, what year is this?

TOW will be dissapointment for feet fetishists.

 

[Black Angel]

This feature has never existed in a Cain/Boyarsky game so it's not that surprising.

Arent npcs go to sleep in Arcanum? At least vendors i think?

They do (+ the music would turn off and will not play until it's morning), and not just vendors except for special vendors that sell black magic-related stuff and such. I know that's the case because there's one in Tarant, and that one won't open until midnight (or maybe 22:00, I forgot exactly when)

Anyway, only two slots for armor is... kind of a mixed bag. On one hand, the past Cainarsky games like Fallout and (iirc) Bloodlines don't have multiple armor slot, on the other hand Arcanum DOES have multiple armor slot for also legs and arms, + Kingdom Come: Deliverance now shown what it's like to have a proper layered armor system. Not to mention we can see our legs in KCD

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Bit of an insight into Leonard's design philosophy. Passing a dialogue skill check MUST benefit the player. You invested points into the skill so you deserve a reward.

Typically lying to an NPC requires you to pass a skill check. Tim wanted there to be a Flaw where if you lied to people too many times, you'd have the option to take a Flaw that would force you to ALWAYS lie to people. But Leonard said, if lying is always beneficial then how is that a flaw?

That's really interesting, actually. And a bit sad, because I think they're both right. They need somebody to moderate, but who could possibly play that roll? They're Tim and Leonard for Christ's sake.

They got hung up on the semantics of the word "flaw." What's a flaw? A narrow version of traits. Why can't a person patholigically lie? I agree with Tim on that one. Then again, if lying brings nothing but benefits (as per his philosophy) then there's no point to including it in the game, as per Leonard.

I understand that creating anything, from a video game, to a book, to a painting, requires some compromise between foresight and capacity. You could come up with the "perfect" concept or the "perfect" system, only to see it all crumble as development continues. Don't we, as consumers, see this happen when we play RPGs for the first time? Don't we play around with different builds, fuck them up miserably, and eventually come to the one(s) we like? CRPGs are fundamentally... RPGs. They're tabletop LARPs in digital format. Playing them is a journey. Imagine how tough it is to create one, and to do so with a budget and time constraints.

HOWEVER! HOWEVER!

When we get guys like Tim and Leonard together, I expect a bit of a miracle. Sadly, this feels like something less. I sincerely hope they prove me wrong, but for all the talk they give to this being the "RPG they wanted to make," I can't shake the feeling of under-funded Obsidian trash. The lack of compromise, or even understanding, of what constitutes a flaw indicates a very rushed early dev cycle. Thoughts were thrown on the table, general ideas popped into existence, and a game began to manifest; by the seats of their pants, Obsidian began development, and by the seats of their pants I'm afraid we will find ourselves disappointed once again.

Sounds like they really had to cut a lot of content in this game. Guess it wouldn't be a Cain & Boyarsky game otherwise. Tim mentions one "corporate intrigue" quest that had to be cut, that would have let you empower one corporation and damage another.

All games cut content, but this seems like Skyrim levels of destruction.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Character designers striving to make "realistic-looking" women and bimbo-beauty modders are two sides of the same perverted coin.

 

[HansDampf]

Bit of an insight into Leonard's design philosophy. Passing a dialogue skill check MUST benefit the player. You invested points into the skill so you deserve a reward.

No exceptions? Why bother reading then? Just pick the shiny Awesome-Dialogue-Option.

 

[Duraframe300]

All games cut content, but this seems like Skyrim levels of destruction.

Compared to their past games not really. Sounds right on par, if not better.
And especially compared to them they seem to have been able to polish the existing content.