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

[GentlemanCthulhu]

As many fans of RPGs like The Outer Worlds know, main quests are only part of the experience. More often than not, the real fun lies in discovering the wonderful stories and characters available through side quests. So far as those go, the team afforded themselves some additional leeway.

“For the side quests, we were less rigid with those,” Staples says. “[We’d say] ‘Here’s a side quest specifically focused on this person who wants you to go clear out a whole bunch of monsters from this area.’ There is really not going to be a dialogue way out of there, because you can’t talk to the monsters. In certain circumstances, it's based on the narrative of the quest we’re doing. We sort of pulled back on the number of options there.”

I wonder when Obsidian realizes that we now live in a post-Disco Elysium world. It's not just enough to have the "main" playing styles, with some side-quest not even featuring all of those. If i want to, I should be able to get drunk with the monsters and convince them to throw themselves into a hundred foot valley as a dare. There should be RP at every moment.

 

[Zombra]

Yeah, dumb of them not to enable modular difficulty tuning. Supernova looks great to me except:

- Companions die permanently doesn't work in real-time RPGs where they are driven by AI - this is doubly bad if enemies do hellacious damage. I have to hope that they can figure out NOT to walk around in the open like morons, or I miss out on their story? Not gonna happen.

- "Bullet sponge gameplay" is just boring in games like this*. I like a high lethality game, but only if it goes both ways.

*"Games like this" being RPGs where there are no tactics, just making sure you have good equipment and then you spam your powers as fast as the cooldowns allow, to reduce their hp faster than they can reduce yours.

 

[Duraframe300]

As many fans of RPGs like The Outer Worlds know, main quests are only part of the experience. More often than not, the real fun lies in discovering the wonderful stories and characters available through side quests. So far as those go, the team afforded themselves some additional leeway.

“For the side quests, we were less rigid with those,” Staples says. “[We’d say] ‘Here’s a side quest specifically focused on this person who wants you to go clear out a whole bunch of monsters from this area.’ There is really not going to be a dialogue way out of there, because you can’t talk to the monsters. In certain circumstances, it's based on the narrative of the quest we’re doing. We sort of pulled back on the number of options there.”

I wonder when Obsidian realizes that we now live in a post-Disco Elysium world. It's not just enough to have the "main" playing styles, with some side-quest not even featuring all of those. If i want to, I should be able to get drunk with the monsters and convince them to throw themselves into a hundred foot valley as a dare. There should be RP at every moment.

These two games aren't exactly comparable and Disco Elysium just released.........

Also, Disco Elysium gets to do a lot of that due to its focus. You won't see a Baldur's Gate or Bethesda or Gothic or Larian style rpg come anywhere near Disco just because they also focus on different things. Not to mention that an indie developer can hit more freely than an AA+ one.

Now, I do think the ideas presented in Disco Elysium will have a very positive effect on the industry (which is why I'm glad that Obsidian is aware of it) and many of its ideas get adapted, but excpecting every game to reach Disco Elysium standards in the RP department is as false (or even worse) an equivalency as if you excpected that every rpg reached PS:T levels after PS:T. Not even that happened.

Just being realistic here, otherwise you'll get mortified by every single rpg in the next 20 years.

 

[Quillon]

If i want to, I should be able to get drunk with the monsters and convince them to throw themselves into a hundred foot valley as a dare.

TOW will let you do that in a patch if DE makes it possible to kill Kim right of the bat(or everyone) and play as a solo detective(or a murderous sociopath).


Dumb comparison is dumb.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I would go for this setting, but yes limited saves sucks

Having to eat, drink and sleep sucks...for me.

These things are way better in more strategic RPGs, like Expeditions Conquistador. In first person, abundance of food/drink everywhere for the single character...without even animation support... meh. Plus the NPCs don't even have schedules to do these stuff in this game, why should I?

They have a story mode you might prefer.

 

[Alienman]

Yeah, dumb of them not to enable modular difficulty tuning. Supernova looks great to me except:

- Companions die permanently doesn't work in real-time RPGs where they are driven by AI - this is doubly bad if enemies do hellacious damage. I have to hope that they can figure out NOT to walk around in the open like morons, or I miss out on their story? Not gonna happen.

- "Bullet sponge gameplay" is just boring in games like this*. I like a high lethality game, but only if it goes both ways.

*"Games like this" being RPGs where there are no tactics, just making sure you have good equipment and then you spam your powers as fast as the cooldowns allow, to reduce their hp faster than they can reduce yours.

Yeah, would be better if it just was a hardcore mode with you needing food, disabled fast traveling etc, instead of doing the HP bloat thing. Think New Vegas was like that? Still will go for this mode.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Yeah, dumb of them not to enable modular difficulty tuning. Supernova looks great to me except:

- Companions die permanently doesn't work in real-time RPGs where they are driven by AI - this is doubly bad if enemies do hellacious damage. I have to hope that they can figure out NOT to walk around in the open like morons, or I miss out on their story? Not gonna happen.

- "Bullet sponge gameplay" is just boring in games like this*. I like a high lethality game, but only if it goes both ways.

*"Games like this" being RPGs where there are no tactics, just making sure you have good equipment and then you spam your powers as fast as the cooldowns allow, to reduce their hp faster than they can reduce yours.

Yeah, would be better if it just was a hardcore mode with you needing food, disabled fast traveling etc, instead of doing the HP bloat thing. Think New Vegas was like that? Still will go for this mode.

FNV Hardcore was:

Companions can die perma, need to eat , drink water , sleep , radiation was much more dangerous (iirc) , only docs and med bags, stimpack didn't insta healed you, enemies were dealt much more damage , etc. But you could freely use fast travel and save any time.

 

[Quillon]

enemies were dealt much more damage

I don't remember this. You could activate the hardcore mod from any difficulty, doesn't make sense to retune combat difficulty again.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

I don't remember this. You could activate the hardcore mod from any difficulty, doesn't make sense to retune combat difficulty again.

I playing FNV on Hardcore rn, maybe it's Jsawyer mod but i taking much more damage.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Just being realistic here, otherwise you'll get mortified by every single rpg in the next 20 years.

"Realistic" should not mean let's copy the same Assault/Sneak/Charisma-check formula for every game and call it a new RPG. The New Vegas/VtMB formula was fine for New Vegas and VtmB, but hardly any other game copied it and achieved the same level of quality. Same with PST, with ToN and the rest of them "spiritual successors" failing to achieve even the base level of that game's quality. RPGs will only "incline" if they give you more and more levels of granular roleplay options - if they allow you to RP better than their competitors, not by copy-pasting the same formula from 10 years ago. Obviously in DE you play as a character concept and have great level of RP within that concept, and i understand that TOW has more of a 'blank-slate' starting character concept, but so far, TOW has not managed to display even an iota of creativity or evolution when it comes to improving the lot of RPGs. I mean the BIGGEST and most novel element in that game's RP is the introduction of the "flaws" system, which let's be honest, is hardly that groundbreaking. Everything else is just copy-paste. But I guess apologists like Rusty-Fuckleford will think me retarded for wanting to see the lot of RPGs improve.

My point in the previous post was that these people (ie. obsidiots) who constantly market themselves as "oh we're such great RP designers" are really only showing you how they are copying the same old formulas. Old Obsidian made FNV in 18 months, they did a fantastic job, and they didn't try to shove their bullshit down our throats. I will be happy with TOW if it manages to be a reasonably fun RPG copy of some greater franchise, but I will ONLY be impressed by it if it manages to break some new ground in RPG game design.

 

[Duraframe300]

copying the same old formulas. Old Obsidian made FNV in 18 months, they did a fantastic job, and they didn't try to shove their bullshit down our throats. I will be happy with TOW if it manages to be a reasonably fun RPG copy of some greater franchise, but I will ONLY be impressed by it if it manages to break some new ground in RPG game design.

Did anyone ever say that?

Furthermore

and they didn't try to shove their bullshit down our throats

What bullshit is shoved down your throat? If anything both Leonard and Tim have been incredibly honest about this game and dampered expectations at every turn they could. The closest they've come to boasting is when they made the comment about *dream rpg* but that has another reason. They have NEVER gone around saying *Oh we're such great designers*.

Boyarsky: Oh, it's definitely working with Tim! [laughter] No, but it is though; that is exactly what I meant. I worked on a couple games before Fallout, and Tim worked on a couple games before Fallout, but that was pretty much our start of working on games that we have creative control over. We created Fallout from scratch, we basically had complete creative control and did whatever we wanted to--same thing with Arcanum. It had been a really long time since we created an IP from scratch. We're really good friends, we complement each other's strengths and weaknesses really well. Not many people are fortunate enough to find that kind of person to work with in their careers, and we were lucky that it was very early in our careers and we have this really great synergy when we get together and start doing this stuff.

We've never really made a pure sci-fi game. Fallout was sci-fi, but it was more post-apocalyptic than sci-fi. So it was one of these things where we're really big fans of science fiction; I personally love fantasy, but I much prefer science fiction if I have to choose between them. So it was weird that we'd never gotten around to do one, and when this opportunity came up it was like, "Yes, I can work with Tim again and we can create an IP from scratch!" It was basically this laundry list of things that I thought...that the next game I wanted to work on would be if I could say "here's the stuff I want to do," and this was it.

Also I don't think you fully got when I made the comparison to other rpgs archetypes like Gothic. It's a different type of rpg with a lot more different elements from Disco than just a non blank-slate main charachter.

And lastly

Now, I do think the ideas presented in Disco Elysium will have a very positive effect on the industry (which is why I'm glad that Obsidian is aware of it) and many of its ideas get adapted,

This is what I wrote. I was never disagreeing with you, I was just saying that excpecting every rpg from now on to be the next Disco Elysium is dangerous. Not that they shouldn't improve thanks to it.

 

[Quillon]

TOW has not managed to display even an iota of creativity or evolution when it comes to improving the lot of RPGs.

So tell me what does Disco do that could improve "the lot of RPGs"? How many RPGs could benefit from having a set protag with its brain constantly fighting inner battles and talking to him? Or unlocking bonuses by "thinking"? Its a fucking specific game with tailor made systems for it, its a great experience but its neither evolutionary nor revolutionary for the genre and it is being debated if the game is even part of the genre or not

Where as you can implement flaws to...any game with character progression, you can implement it to Disco even, easily :D

 

[jf8350143]

As many fans of RPGs like The Outer Worlds know, main quests are only part of the experience. More often than not, the real fun lies in discovering the wonderful stories and characters available through side quests. So far as those go, the team afforded themselves some additional leeway.

“For the side quests, we were less rigid with those,” Staples says. “[We’d say] ‘Here’s a side quest specifically focused on this person who wants you to go clear out a whole bunch of monsters from this area.’ There is really not going to be a dialogue way out of there, because you can’t talk to the monsters. In certain circumstances, it's based on the narrative of the quest we’re doing. We sort of pulled back on the number of options there.”

I wonder when Obsidian realizes that we now live in a post-Disco Elysium world. It's not just enough to have the "main" playing styles, with some side-quest not even featuring all of those. If i want to, I should be able to get drunk with the monsters and convince them to throw themselves into a hundred foot valley as a dare. There should be RP at every moment.

"There should be RP at every moment". But you can't even role play as someone who isn't a cop in Disco Elysium.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

The New Vegas/VtMB formula was fine for New Vegas and VtmB, but hardly any other game copied it and achieved the same level of quality

Tbh it's was more because almost no one tried to create/made AT ALL a game like VtmB and FNV than because hardly anyone achieve same level of quality.

Can you say now one game that's like New Vegas since 2010? Maybe Deus Ex HR/MKD and that's it.

 

[Prime Junta]

"There should be RP at every moment". But you can't even role play as someone who isn't a cop in Disco Elysium.

You can't role play as someone who isn't a Bhaalspawn adventurer in Baldur's Gate 2 either.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

The Outer Worlds featured in Tacobell Commercial/Contest :





This shit make TOW look like God Damn Titan Fall lmao

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

You can't role play as someone who isn't a Bhaalspawn adventurer in Baldur's Gate 2 either.

Yup. Retarded reasoning and subversion at every step.

So easy to bait out the apologists though. The hivemind is in fact unbeatable, and that's why as a whole, the gaming industry sucks.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Also ...


I'm failed before even start.

Obsidian gonna play The Outer World on Twitch Oct 22nd.

 

[Duraframe300]

TOW has not managed to display even an iota of creativity or evolution when it comes to improving the lot of RPGs.

So tell me what does Disco do that could improve "the lot of RPGs"? How many RPGs could benefit from having a set protag with its brain constantly fighting inner battles and talking to him? Or unlocking bonuses by "thinking"? Its a fucking specific game with tailor made systems for it, its a great experience but its neither evolutionary nor revolutionary for the genre and it is being debated if the game is even part of the genre or not

Where as you can implement flaws to...any game with character progression, you can implement it to Disco even, easily :D

I'd say its certainly evolutionary, in that its an evolution from a more dialog focused rpg like Planescpae: Torment and its ideas, while not directly usable, can be adapted quite well. It extends current ideas in a way more rpgs and games in general should.

Disco Elysium is fucking excellent on its own, there's no need to use it as an argument either way. It should be promoted and going forward it should influence game design and designers in ways that make sense for their projects.

 

[Quillon]

Also ... https://twitter.com/OuterWorlds/status/1184877727444156417 I'm failed before even start.

Obsidian gonna play The Outer World on Twitch Oct 22nd.

What is "twitch plays"?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

One thing TOW will do better than disco is sell more than 5,000 copies.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Also ... https://twitter.com/OuterWorlds/status/1184877727444156417 I'm failed before even start.

Obsidian gonna play The Outer World on Twitch Oct 22nd.

What is "twitch plays"?

Well , if it's anything like other ''Twitch Plays'' , i'm gonna guess that they gonna let us play The Outer World by inputing commands on the chat. Like Foward , Open Menu , LT , RT , etc..

 

[Duraframe300]

Press-Tour continues on the Gameinfomer Show

https://www.gameinformer.com/video-...-show-pokemon-sword-writing-reviews-the-outer

 

[Sailor Woedica]

One thing TOW will do better than disco is sell more than 5,000 copies.

Don't be petty.

 

[Infinitron]

More from IGN: https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/15/developer-interview-the-outer-worlds-unlocked-415

Finally: