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

[Quillon]

Also, why did they put information about what people eat in time dilation info box?

Cainarksy's solution to "But what do they eat?".

Tho, it answers Shamus/MrBtounge's famous question at the least

 

[Sailor Woedica]

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news..._new_worlds_in_Obsidians_The_Outer_Worlds.php

Megan is so the coolest, sis!

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news..._new_worlds_in_Obsidians_The_Outer_Worlds.php

Q&A: Writing new characters, new worlds in Obsidian's The Outer Worlds

For many RPG players, there’s been a Fallout: New Vegas hole left in their hearts.

Released in 2010 by publisher Bethesda and developer Obsidian, New Vegas was different from the Bethesda-developed Fallout 3 that came before it. New Vegas was arguably more surprising in the storytelling and narrative department; inarguably, it was a weirder game than its predecessor.

It all makes sense when you consider that Obsidian has the DNA of Fallout coursing through its veins. Founded by Fallout 2 developers from Black Isle Studios, a subsidiary of Fallout creator Interplay, Obsidian couldn’t help but infuse New Vegas with that mix of dark, silly strangeness that made the series so memorable.

And here we are in 2019 – Obsidian is now owned by Microsoft, and is having a game published by Take Two's label, Private Division. Through this entanglement of corporations emerges what’s being called a spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas, and it’s called The Outer Worlds. Helmed by Tim Cain (best known as creator of Fallout) and Leonard Boyarsky (also known for his work on Fallout), The Outer Worlds could give players a unique dose of RPG weirdness that so many are looking for, in a brand new universe where corporations rule everything.

Working as senior narrative designer on The Outer Worlds is Megan Starks, a self-professed (chaotic evil and) Fallout fan with credits on Fallen Earth, Deadfire, Tyranny, and other games. At E3 this week, she gave us a rundown of how she creates characters and worlds in The Outer Worlds.

Edited for length and clarity.

What’s it like working on games with so many branching dialogs and narrative?
Working on Obsidian games is really rewarding, because we’re always trying to account for players trying to take different routes through the conversations. The content is based on the way they want to play the game, whether they want be good or evil, somewhere in between, whether they’re doing combat or an intimidation type character or stealth, leadership – we really provide lots of different routes through any given conversation.

At the same time, we want [the game] to react to everything, So we’re always keeping track of what players are doing in the game, and having the world change based off of that.

So what kind of tools do you use for your job?
We have a proprietary editor for making conversation in the game. But it’s really nice – it’s a node-based system. Basically what you do is you make a file that’s going to be the conversation, and you can put different conversations on different NPCs.

In the demo, Catherine [a key NPC] could have multiple different files on her. So to make conversation within that, you make different nodes; you have player response nodes, which is what the player says to the NPC, then you have NPC nodes, which is what the character says when talking back to you.

Within the nodes you have this string, the actual writing. So we’ll have Catherine say ‘Hey, what do you want?’ and also you do all your scripting on that node. Basically you pull in the dialog and the VO and you also pull in what’s happening - if she’s giving you an item, if she’s advancing your quest, stuff like that.

It’s based on drop-down logic that goes top-to-bottom. For example, usually the way that I structure conversations [in the tool] is at the very top is ‘You’ve exhausted all of this person’s quests,’ and if you come back to them, they just have a single reactivity node that’s ‘Thanks for helping me out!’ or ‘Screw you, I hate you forever!’ You just work your way down. I always try to have a unique intro, especially for important NPCs.

Spoiler

When you introduce a new character, how do you go about giving them that initial impact?
Usually when I come up with a character, I try to think of, first off, what is important to the quest that you’re doing? We’re always trying to convey to the player ‘these are the things that you need to know, the information for the question, and the different ways you can do the quest.’

Beyond that, it’s about what type of person is this character - what’s interesting about them? We’re usually trying to come up with one ‘thing’ that’s an interesting takeaway from interacting with them. Maybe it’s a personality quirk or a manner of speaking, or just their disposition. Then based on whether they’re heroic or villainous, you can always imagine making them feel more real in the world. You can think what this character wants most in the world, and what are they willing to do to get that? And then also, what is their greatest fear? And if you can answer those kinds of questions, you can actually make them feel more realistic.

When you’re making a game where you want to tell your own story, but you want to give players agency, how do you balance that?
One of the things we try to do a lot is we don’t force the player to say something. We don’t ever want the player to have one dialog option, or one thing to say. Even if [we give the option of] ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ that’s the bare minimum. And beyond that you want different personality types – am I a good guy, a bad guy, am I a nice person?

I love when games let you pretend that you’re good when you’re totally lying [laughs]. So I think it’s just taking into account all the playstyles, and not just what your preferred playstyle is, but what other people like.

I usually play chaotic evil in games, and my husband always plays lawful good, so a lot of times [when writing], I have to ask myself, ‘What would my husband want?’ [laughs]

What's your process for coming up with characters from scratch?
When we worked on [the town of] Fallbrook, and Catherine Malin who runs Fallbrook, basically the town is owned by an organized criminal faction. They’re a bunch of smugglers, and they’re working on this planet that is blockaded by other corporations. They’re the only way to get in and out, and get food and drugs, stuff like that.

We thought it would be cool if the town had kind of this Deadwood vibe, like sci-fi and Western. I started thinking about the different characters in Deadwood and thought [Al Swearengen] would be a great touchpoint character for Catherine Malin. So I used him loosely as a general archetype.

And once I started writing her, I tried to think about what she’s like on a more individual level, what her backstory might have been. These are things that don’t come up [in the game]. We don’t very often, or I try to avoid, having the player be like, ‘So, tell me about you!’ You want those things to naturally progress in a conversation, so you have a sense of the story being an iceberg – what you’re seeing is the tip of it, but you get the sense that there is something much deeper underneath. That makes things feel realistic.

When you’re talking about Fallbrook, what goes into fleshing out the details of the town and the environment the characters exist within?
We usually come up with what we want the story of the area to be. In the universe of the game, this was a smugglers’ town, and also that they’re not just smuggling in and out goods, but they’re also smuggling in and out people. And I thought they’d probably be enterprising.

In the universe of the game, it’s because corporations own everything, and it’s a little bit of a dystopian society. You’re not able to take vacations or have leisure time, so I thought the very wealthy people in Byzantium would think ‘Wouldn’t it be a trip to go to basically this scummy version of Vegas!’ And they’re paying tons of money to come into this smugglers’ port to gamble and drink and have this leisure time.

So you have these two dichotomies going on in the area. Then we just built it from there – writing starting with your major characters, then you add in your vendors, and your sidequest-givers, then your ambient NPCs and flesh them out to tell the whole story.

Is this game a critique of capitalism?
I honestly don’t know if there’s any sort of higher-level [meaning]. I think they [Cain and Boyarsky] just thought it’d be really funny to create a society that’s really dark and a different take on how the future could go.

What is it about the Fallout series that really made an impact on you, and how do you think that’s influencing you?
I think one of the things that I really liked – and this may sound a little sad because I’m a little bit of a younger gamer – so my first Fallout game was Fallout 3. But one of the things that I really liked about it was that it was sort of a coming of age story. It was one of the first games that I played where you could make a female character, and have a female coming of age story. I felt totally empowered, like ‘Hey, this is my story and I’m going after my dad in this wasteland.’

But I also really like that it was one of the first games that I played where you could manipulate the karma to be good or evil, and I had a lot of fun going around and murdering everyone and then like, giving a hobo some water. [laughs]

I think that introduced me to the concept of having lots of different dialog options, and I just got hooked. And of course, I do like darker genres like that – Bioshock, Borderlands, and looking forward to Cyberpunk. It just seemed like a really good fit.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Is this game a critique of capitalism?
I honestly don’t know if there’s any sort of higher-level [meaning]. I think they [Cain and Boyarsky] just thought it’d be really funny to create a society that’s really dark and a different take on how the future could go.

This is why game journalists are shit.
Game developers create x because x seems cool then game "''journalists""" read their biases into it

 

[Duraframe300]

Is this game a critique of capitalism?
I honestly don’t know if there’s any sort of higher-level [meaning]. I think they [Cain and Boyarsky] just thought it’d be really funny to create a society that’s really dark and a different take on how the future could go.

This is why game journalists are shit.
Game developers create x because x seems cool then game "''journalists""" read their biases into it

Well, there definitly is social commentary like in Fallout, Arcanum and Bloodlines, but the thing is that Leonard and Tim don't force any of it in a certain direction.
Depending on your personal outlook and choices you might interpret large parts of their games different than another person.

Ofc, that is a concept *EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL. AND BY THAT I MEAN EVERTHYING IS ONLY MY POLITICS* Journos can't grasp.

 

[Flou]

This was written by the magnificent Megan Starks!? I’ve always said she doesn’t get enough credit and just needs some halfway decent direction to do quality work. She worked with Tim on Wildstar, which I think is why she leapfrogged the other writers to seemingly become Leonard’s deputy on this. Although maybe she’s just the only narrative designer to talk to the press because she’s the most articulate and photogenic.

Out of the new core of Obsidian writers, she is the one with most experience. And to be fair, Carrie Patel was a bit busier with Deadfire since she was the co-lead writer on that.

I think she has been doing a great job when writing everything else except companions so far. For my liking, her companions haven't really "worked", there's something off or very annoying about them which is a shame because she can write other characters really well. If she could only get her companions to be as well written as for example Bleden Mark or the Pirate leaders.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Well, there definitly is social commentary like in Fallout,

 

[Duraframe300]

Well, there definitly is social commentary like in Fallout,

... Ok, that doesn't really invalidate what I said and technically that is also already social commentary (Violence is all there is).
Social commentary does not mean shoved down politics. Especially if interpretation is open to the player as is the case in Cainarsky games.
Also, I'm actually just referencing something Leonard himself said in one of the interviews, paraphrasing: *I'm more of the guy that makes social commentary and Tim is more the just funny guy*

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Pros:
>Kind of a neat little world
>Refreshing to see bright colors in an RPG
>Dialogue options seem decent enough

Cons:
>HUD fills up half the screen on all sides, and at all times.
Truly astonishing how we moved from....
- the infinity engine's minimal yet extensively useful and intuitive HUD, to
- very little HUD befitting an action-oriented approach, to
- a screen plastered with more graphics than Ricky Bobby's race car and only 1/300th the tactics of something like Icewind Dale.

>Special abilities and your cheat-button VATS regenerate quickly outside of combat.
Wow, impressive. I can't wait to manage these scant resources.

>Putting points into weapon skills lets you unlock locational damage effects with guns.
Man. What the fuck? Could you make that any more arcadey?

>We really love how our time dilation is RTWP. We think this makes our FPS tactical. Also, I'm going to throw in the term "RPG mechanics" real quick to make sure it's on your radar, even though it isn't relevant.
Speaks for itself.

>Just combat in general.
Looks painfully easy. The dude kept talking about how your character didn't really put points into being a god of war, and yet the player is tanking space bullets to the face like dreadnaught while cutting down every enemy in sight with ease.

 

[Infinitron]

The gamejournos angling for a critique of capitalism are as usual getting it wrong.

From what we've seen, the Halcyon Colony is not a capitalist dystopia. It's a parodic clown world. It's not inhabited by downtrodden masses who are being exploited by big business, but by a bizarre subculture of people who casually greet each other with marketing slogans. And the people opposing this subculture don't appear to be some organized revolutionary cadre, but a collection of outcasts and misfits.

It's like looking for the "critique" in the anarcho-syndicalist peasant scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You can call it social commentary if you want, but you'd probably be taking things too seriously.

 

[Duraframe300]

The gamejournos angling for a critique of capitalism are as usual getting it wrong.

From what we've seen, the Halcyon Colony is not a capitalist dystopia. It's a parodic clown world. It's not inhabited by downtrodden masses who are being exploited by big business, but by a bizarre subculture of people who casually greet each other with marketing slogans. And the people opposing this subculture don't appear to be some organized revolutionary cadre, but a collection of outcasts and misfits.

It's like looking for the "critique" in the anarcho-syndicalist peasant scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You can call it social commentary if you want, but you'd probably be taking things too seriously.

The movie Brazil may be the more apt. comparison there.

Also commentary does not have to be a *critique* either.

 

[Quillon]

Leonard tells outright that Microsoft has acquired TOW IP.

 

[jf8350143]

This dude here attended both demos and says TOW's dialogue is better than CP77's



Also, why did they put information about what people eat in time dilation info box? Just for flavor? Tho, it answers Shamus/MrBtounge's famous question at the least

Can't say I'm surprised, the dialogue in the demo they show last year was very bare boned.

 

[Butter]

I had no idea Electric Playground was still a thing. Victor Lucas must be 60 by now.

 

[Quillon]

Another interview:


from official website:
https://d1079ywfijtdjs.cloudfront.net/images/outerworlds/v2/video/weapon-variants.mp4
https://d1079ywfijtdjs.cloudfront.net/images/outerworlds/v2/video/companion-specials.mp4

 

[Wunderbar]

Well, there definitly is social commentary like in Fallout,

My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Well, there definitly is social commentary like in Fallout,

My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun.

Spoiler

he lied

 

[Nano]

Leonard tells outright that Microsoft has acquired TOW IP.

This made me realize I want a 'duh'/'no shit Sherlock' button.

 

[Flou]

Leonard tells outright that Microsoft has acquired TOW IP.

They always had the rights for the IP. First Obsidian owned it, now it's under Microsoft. What he did not mention was the fact that the original deal they made with PD allows PD first publishing rights to any sequels. So PD still could own those rights.

 

[Duraframe300]

Well, there definitly is social commentary like in Fallout,

My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun.

Spoiler

he lied

While that was a white lie....

Boyarsky: We like to subvert people’s expectations. We’re drawn to deeper social commentary, even though we’re not pretending we’re profound or anything. We like to play around in that arena.
Cain: We’re not making colony simulator. We’re just trying to make this a really fun environment. And if we can do some social commentary along the way, so be it.

 

[Infinitron]

Leonard tells outright that Microsoft has acquired TOW IP.

Why wouldn't they have? It belonged to Obsidian. You own Obsidian, you own TOW. The issue is that the rights to make a sequel are tied up with Take-Two Interactive.

 

[Duraframe300]

Leonard tells outright that Microsoft has acquired TOW IP.

Why wouldn't they have? It belonged to Obsidian. You own Obsidian, you own TOW. The issue is that the rights to make a sequel are tied up with Take-Two Interactive.

Was this ever confirmed?

 

[Infinitron]

Leonard tells outright that Microsoft has acquired TOW IP.

Why wouldn't they have? It belonged to Obsidian. You own Obsidian, you own TOW. The issue is that the rights to make a sequel are tied up with Take-Two Interactive.

Was this ever confirmed?

That's what they said in this interview: https://gamedaily.biz/article/98/ta...ry-somewhat-sadly-falling-prey-to-sequel-itis

Worosz made it clear that the developers Private Division works with will maintain their IP rights. That said, Private Division keeps long-term rights to publish sequels.

But the exact nature of these rights (eg, are they exclusive or not?) is unclear.

 

[Alienman]

Just change outer to inner and you got a new IP. Problem solved!

 

[Duraframe300]

That's what they said in this interview: https://gamedaily.biz/article/98/ta...ry-somewhat-sadly-falling-prey-to-sequel-itis

Worosz made it clear that the developers Private Division works with will maintain their IP rights. That said, Private Division keeps long-term rights to publish sequels.

But the exact nature of these rights (exclusive or not?) is unclear.

Thank you. Imo, regardless it would come down to what Microsoft decides to do.

1 - Can the franchise.
2 - Continue working with Private Division/Take Two
3 - Buy the publishing right.

I can't see Private Division passing up on the chance for publishing a sequel. 2 might end up too much of a headache, especially since at least the majority of profits would go to Take2. Of course Microsoft could negotiate something there, but again seems just more of a headache, possible making 3 even the cheapest option.

Whatever Microsoft decides, they should do it fast depending on their expectations of Outer Worlds appeal. If it does end up successful that just means Take2 holds more negotiating power in the long run.