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

[Saerain]

I hope Boyarsky and Cain will stay at Obsidian after this game and that they will be involved in future games like POE3.

I hope they're working exploitative hours to cover both this and the VTM title.

 

[jewboy]

What is a quest marker anyway? Is it just an indicator that a particular npc has a job for you? Like you are at a bar and one of the guys there wants to fuck the barmaid, but he doesn't have any condoms? You have a reputation as some kind of retard who loves to fetch stuff for people for free so he asks you to do it. He can see that you are bored and have nothing better to do anyway. I don't care about quest markers as much as I do about filler fedex quests that are not part of the story. The whole idea of 'quests' is fucked imo and we should all stop using that word and stop assuming that every rpg should have them. Quests feel like virtual unpaid work and were always a dumb idea.

Talking to NPCs should be about information gathering to try to solve whatever mystery the game is luring you with and not about completing tasks for people or working. If you want unpaid work in a game play the sims or something. Stop polluting an otherwise fun gaming experience with retardo-jobs. Or better yet you can go out into the world and do volunteer work. Wash people's cars or clean people's houses for free if you want. If they want to give the NPCs with jobs for you red clothing or a gnarled wooden staff or some other subtle indicator, whatever, who cares? That isn't the problem. It's the quests themselves that are the problem: an indicator that there is no strong story to give you reasons to do stuff in the game world and the game designers need to find random stuff to keep you busy.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

The Outer Worlds announcement trailer has now been lewked at 9 million times!

(for comparison Dragon Age's trailer which was released the very same night has only been noticed 1 million times)

 

[Jedi Exile]

There was a Dragon Age trailer? I completely forgot about that.

 

[JarlFrank]

We may hate them, but if you want to sell a lot of copies, as Take-Two surely does, they are an expected feature that casuals can’t live without—or at least, they don’t believe they can live without them.

Didn't stop Subnautica from becoming an outsized commercial success. If you can offer them someplace interesting to explore, "casuals" seem perfectly fine without quest markers.

This. Just make exploration cool and interesting.

Quest markers destroy any "cool" and "interesting" that exploration might have. Quest markers are the devil and need to be purged with fire.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Um, fairly linear, mission-based immersive sims may not be the best point of comparison here? Not a coincidence that most of the games with the best level design have actual levels.

Also not great comparisons: games that are focused on exploration to the exclusion of almost everything else. Does Subnautica even have quests?

I love tight open world RPGs that are designed with no quest markers. Ideally, we’d live in a universe where CRPG studios try to emulate Piranha Bytes’ design philosophy on this stuff. Unfortunately, those games sell just enough copies to keep the doors open and line up the next project (probably more because of the difficulty curve, the eurojank and the lack of marketing than a lack of quest compass/markers, but it’s hard to convince the money guys to emulate something niche). Obsidian wants to make money. They’re going after the 10 million plus Fallout: New Vegas market. Or, to an even lesser extent, the still larger Witcher 3 or Skyrim audience. A whole new generation of “RPG” fans have been trained by these games to follow that damned compass.

Long story short: Tim and Leonard are fighting a rearguard action against an ever-rising tide of shit (and they’re doing it on a limited budget). Rather than being disappointed when they include a terrible but very common mechanic like quest marker centric design, I’m pleasantly surprised when they can retain any worthwhile mechanics in the game at all.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

In a perfect world, even the 3D, first-person style would have cities built like Arcanum's Tarant, but that's probably not a great option for resources for someone like Obsidian, unfortunately. We'd have to see some eager, ambitious indie devs try to pull that off, those who were inspired to make their game by games like Arcanum and the like. Like Kyl Von mentions, Obsidian is trying to go for the New Vegas/Skyrim/Witcher 3/etc. crowd, so certain things will be as they are and we'll have to accept them. But plenty of Tim and Leonard's ideas will still be there, fleshed out and giving us a modern option than to replay Fallout 1 all the time (which is fine, but it's nice to have modern games that accomplish some of the same things.)

 

[Wesp5]

Rather than being disappointed when they include a terrible but very common mechanic like quest marker centric design, I’m pleasantly surprised when they can retain any worthwhile mechanics in the game at all.

Even if there will be a quest marker that can't be turned off, some modder will certainly remove it and fix the quest descriptions to make it work without. And no, I am not volunteering !

 

[Beastro]

In the interview, Tim and Leonard seem kind of surprised that this is even an issue. They're sort of puzzled/intrigued by the idea that people would want to be able turn quest markers off. Maybe "exploration" is something they never thought about or cared about all that much.

They're in the business of adding shapes to games; taking them away is a total mind blow.

people bringing up oblivion/morrowind in this thread earlier and it just makes me hope that this game will have good NPCs to interact with

That would be perfect if only it was zoomed right in on her face and she lifelessly stared right into the camera the entire time, even when walking around.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Yosharian]

I once had a fling with a girl who said that all the time, 'I'm judging you for that'. She meant it in a humorous way.

She was a bitch.

 

[AwesomeButton]

They don't know how to write a character who is not themselves. Some writers.

 

[Jenkem]

the way they keep going out of there way to downplay this game makes me think it is going to be a 3 hour walking simulator with visual novel elements

 

[fantadomat]

They don't know how to write a character who is not themselves. Some writers.

How? That is not very hard,all you need is some basic life experience. You could always just write a character that you hate.

 

[ADL]

Alpha Protocol had them and it was linear as fuck. The quest markers aren’t necessary from a design perspective, they’re necessary from the publisher’s perspective. We may hate them, but if you want to sell a lot of copies, as Take-Two surely does, they are an expected feature that casuals can’t live without—or at least, they don’t believe they can live without them. What the hell did any of you expect?

You're aware that some of the biggest AAA games of the last two years have launched with truly optional quest markers right?
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Red Dead Redemption 2
Breath of the Wild

 

[GrainWetski]

You're aware that some of the biggest AAA games of the last two years have launched with truly optional quest markers right?
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Red Dead Redemption 2
Breath of the Wild

Turning them off in a game that is made to played with them on isn't really an option. You're just blindly running around.

 

[ADL]

You're aware that some of the biggest AAA games of the last two years have launched with truly optional quest markers right?
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Red Dead Redemption 2
Breath of the Wild

Turning them off in a game that is made to played with them on isn't really an option. You're just blindly running around.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey has exploration mode which changes the NPC dialog and gives Morrowind-esque directions. RDR2 does the same and Zelda doesn't have any period.

 

[Alienman]

But they still point it out on the map, from those 20 minutes I have played anyway.

 

[BEvers]

But they still point it out on the map, from those 20 minutes I have played anyway.

This is the information you get in those quests:

 

[Belegarsson]

My optimistic side's telling me that site mistook Outer Wilds as Outer Worlds.
My practical side's telling me

But they still point it out on the map, from those 20 minutes I have played anyway.

This is the information you get in those quests:

This system in ACO is actually flawed: despite only giving you direction to the target, once you're near them, the game still make you scan the area through your eagle and mark them on your screen anyway.

At least that's how it worked back when I played it, not sure if later updates changed anything.

 

[ADL]

But they still point it out on the map, from those 20 minutes I have played anyway.

It doesn't, unless you enable them.

Instead of an omniscient god directing you to the nearby bandit den or whatever, you’re now given directions. Or clues, really. They might say something like “On the southern tip of Ithaca” and “Near the waterfront” or “East of the river” or whatever.

Then it’s up to you to take this info, decipher it, and mark on your map where you think you’re supposed to go. Let me stress: Most of these clues aren’t especially difficult. This isn’t a riddle game or anything. Usually the three clues are enough to triangulate a rough position. It’s tempting to say Exploration Mode feels new, but really it feels very old, hearkening back to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and its written quest instructions. Not to say Odyssey is on the same level as Morrowind, which literally had characters give you “Go up past this tree and then turn right”-style directions, but it’s a lot closer to that end of the spectrum than it is to traditional Assassin’s Creed

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3304311/assassins-creed-odyssey-exploration-mode.html

That being said, I had to use my bird maybe five times in a hundred plus hour playthrough to find the exact location of where I'm supposed to go... But that's after finding the general area I'm supposed to be without issue. At that point 99% of the exploration has been done so I didn't mind using the bird a handful of times. For such a large world, it's very easy to navigate because multiple landmarks are on screen at any given time and the NPC directions are reliable.

 

[ADL]

This system in ACO is actually flawed: despite only giving you direction to the target, once you're near them, the game still make you scan the area through your eagle and mark them on your screen anyway.

At least that's how it worked back when I played it, not sure if later updates changed anything.

Even if that were the case (which I dispute with my 100 plus hour playthrough only having to use the bird a handful of times) by the time you've entered the "quest area" 99% of the exploration has already been done. It's amazing they made a game so easy to navigate with such little information given.

 

[Alienman]

This system in ACO is actually flawed: despite only giving you direction to the target, once you're near them, the game still make you scan the area through your eagle and mark them on your screen anyway.

Yes, that is what I mean. Had to pinpoint the location using the magical bird.

 

[Egosphere]

I have a new found respect for this game in light of the 'punch up, not down; malkavians vilify mental illness' horseshit emanating from the other guys