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

Ivan

Arcane
Joined
Jun 22, 2013
Messages
7,507
Location
California
@ Monarch right now and thus far I have to give this :2/5:

I'll focus on the pros for now since I'm mostly negative on this:

-the writing is brief and humorous, VO is solid
-there's seems to be a lot of unique companion interjections when talking to NPCs ( a lot of, "I bet if I had X in my party, they'd chime in here," so in that respect I feel they've done a good job painting the companions' interests
-I like how small the maps are, not much bloat nor are you often spammed with enemy encounters very much
 

Nifft Batuff

Prophet
Joined
Nov 14, 2018
Messages
3,220
When you play Pillars 1 with a developer commentary and you enter the brothel in Defiance Bay, the voice of Obsidian's female developer joyfully announces that RPG players always demand brothels in their games. So just a short while ago no one even cared about diversity this, SJW that, including the women on the staff. It was universally understood that little computer people in the video game are just bits of code and you can do all kinds of horrible things to them and there's no problem.

Just 5 years later the climate has changed so much that no only you can't have a brothel, but everything needs to be crafted to avoid the wrath of various Neopuritan pressure groups. All this world salad about formative experiences, valley girls and debate how to raise a perfect video game writer is just ignoring the elephant in the room. I seriously fucking doubt Obsidian's Old Guard is on board with any of this nonsense, but in a climate like this, people are afraid to stick their necks out, when even Holywood big shot celebrities are currently having their careers ruined for less.

Luckily enough there are still countries other than US where you can put brothels in your fictional works without risk for your career.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
When you play Pillars 1 with a developer commentary and you enter the brothel in Defiance Bay, the voice of Obsidian's female developer joyfully announces that RPG players always demand brothels in their games. So just a short while ago no one even cared about diversity this, SJW that, including the women on the staff. It was universally understood that little computer people in the video game are just bits of code and you can do all kinds of horrible things to them and there's no problem.

Just 5 years later the climate has changed so much that no only you can't have a brothel, but everything needs to be crafted to avoid the wrath of various Neopuritan pressure groups. All this world salad about formative experiences, valley girls and debate how to raise a perfect video game writer is just ignoring the elephant in the room. I seriously fucking doubt Obsidian's Old Guard is on board with any of this nonsense, but in a climate like this, people are afraid to stick their necks out, when even Holywood big shot celebrities are currently having their careers ruined for less.

Luckily enough there are still countries other than US where you can put brothels in your fictional works without risk for your careers.
We call those countries Texas.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,171
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
When you play Pillars 1 with a developer commentary and you enter the brothel in Defiance Bay, the voice of Obsidian's female developer joyfully announces that RPG players always demand brothels in their games. So just a short while ago no one even cared about diversity this, SJW that, including the women on the staff. It was universally understood that little computer people in the video game are just bits of code and you can do all kinds of horrible things to them and there's no problem.

Just 5 years later the climate has changed so much that no only you can't have a brothel, but everything needs to be crafted to avoid the wrath of various Neopuritan pressure groups. All this world salad about formative experiences, valley girls and debate how to raise a perfect video game writer is just ignoring the elephant in the room. I seriously fucking doubt Obsidian's Old Guard is on board with any of this nonsense, but in a climate like this, people are afraid to stick their necks out, when even Holywood big shot celebrities are currently having their careers ruined for less.
You understood me wrong. Doing terrible things to computer people (or whatever thing of yore) is not some kind of neutral position which SJWs have strayed away from, it is a specific position that appeals to a certain demographic or one which has been normalized through excessive repetition and re-confirmation. Now that the status quo is being disrupted, all kinds of theories are popping up about how women are ruining writing in video games and beta cucks are bootlicking peons of the modern left and politics. Buff dudes saving maidens is politics, having brothels for the enjoyment of straight men is politics, having pretty women is politics, and yadda yadda. So, it is not so much the lack of politics that appeal to people who are complaining, and more about what kind of politics it is, the ones with which they agree.

Whether Obsidian's writers believe what they are preaching is wholly besides the point. And again, don't get me wrong, Nubsidian has shit writers.

Herp derp muh politics.

Guess which recently released game is very highly regarded among the locals? Disco Elysium. A game made by literal communists and brimming with politics. And it doesn't even have combat! The Codex should hate it for being a subversive leftie game!

But no, it's actually good. I'm as far to the right as you can be, which is as far away ideologically from the writers of that game as you can be... yet I love it, even though it somewhat misrepresents fascism.

Why do people love the game then? Because it doesn't openly push an agenda. It lets the player choose what his character thinks and does and feels. You don't get canned opinions and worldviews shoved down your throat. NPCs are written like actual people who have a history and a personality rather than just being sounding boards for political opinions, or walking stereotypes like "STRONG WARRIOR" and "TRICKSTER THIEF".

It's not about which politics are appealing to us and which aren't. It's whether the game's themes, writing, quests, and gameplay are designed well or not, and which stances the game allows you to take.

In a role playing game, I should be allowed to agree or disagree with any position offered to me by NPCs. Because it's, you know, a role playing game. You decide what character to play. If the developers decide for you what your character should be, the game just became less of an RPG for it.

If those SJW cunts had any kind of talent and all and would deliver a genuinely good game, I could even look past them pushing their shitty ideology into it.
But they can't.
They just write hacky shit that's supposed to sound more clever than it actually is, and recycle tired stereotypes because they're not creative enough to come up with their own ideas.
And their solution to "changing the face of gaming" towards something more "inclusive" doesn't entail adding cool new things of their own, no, it's all about avoiding to do the things that are toxic and bad.
No brothels! No damsels in distress! No buff Conanesque strongmen! No sexualized warrior chicks like Red Sonya either!
Ok, but... what are they actually replacing these things with? They replace them with the same stereotypes, except with reversed roles. Now it's the strong butch dyke woman rescuing the soyboy in distress, which is just as trite and boring a cliche as the buff barbarian rescuing the fair maiden. It's not creative, it's boring and predictable.

It's not specifically about the politics. It's that these people have no idea how to creatively express their ideas. And that is largely the fault of their education and surroundings.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,065
Pathfinder: Wrath
"Everything is politics!" is a shit argument.
It's not a shit argument because this is what it boils down to. Expecting something that has come before means something has been normalized and you don't notice it, which is where the problem is. To make a different analogy, the mass consumption of meat at which most people don't bat an eye is because the systematic suffering and death of animals on a massive scale has been normalized. Everything can be habituated through repetition, no matter how unjustified and extreme. That doesn't mean the normalized thing isn't political, it might not be, but when we are dealing with groups of people (especially prostitutes to be exploited by straight men) it most likely is.

The thing is, people that have been catered to suddenly find out that the entire world is not comprised of people like them and they got cranky. All the while not realizing that companies do continue to cater to them because they are the majority, it's just not all the time with everything ever like it was before, companies will not compromise profit for ideology, they know what to target and how to target it.


If those SJW cunts had any kind of talent and all and would deliver a genuinely good game, I could even look past them pushing their shitty ideology into it.

It's almost as if that's what I've been saying the whole time. It's not politics, it's how shit the writers are, yet people complain it's "politics in muh vidya" while failing to realize that politics have always existed. Actually, they don't fail to realize that, they want to make it seem like the previous politics were a neutral stance with no political affiliation, which is devious.
 
Last edited:

Daidre

Arcane
Joined
Jan 30, 2019
Messages
1,975
Location
Samara
Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
The world depicted in TOW feels like a retarded theme park.

From what I have seen world is really weird with whole food shortage + deceases angle.

I mean, sky is blue, grass is green, air is breathable and wild-life is mostly classic carbon based mammal. And writers claim that there is nothing to grow/breed for easy food? That people in 24th century are so ignorant that they die from vitamin deficit? There are almost working self-sustaining projects for a Mars colonization in our time, for the fuck sake. And whole let the weak die idea with medicine is even more stupid. Raising new workers to replace them is at least 15 years in medicine + education + food costs and it is unavoidable for colony continued survival.

Edgewater already got a lot of head scratching from me. They seem classic mining town except they don't mine anything. They are, in fact, does not produce anything other than canned dead fish. And why they need so many people for canning dead fish with robots this advanced? And who the hell all marauders that outnumber peaceful population 3 to 1 steal from to survive?

Maybe I am not inventive enough or everything falls into place as plot progress but right now it looks like someone skipped science classes.
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,977
Location
Russia
some guy did a genocide run and surprise it barely changed anything lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/theouterworlds/comments/dp1bc6/genocide_run_details/
not unexpected. Even choices themselves are mostly flavour of the same. you only get very strong change if you side with someone else but good dude; and it feels like basically all-bad decision which affects everything. like an after thought; not actual alternative like House/NCR/independent. There is no nuance where you can be pro one small thing or another.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Death by a thousand cuts is no fun at all. And that's what you're risking if you don't play it safe.
 

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,192
Anyhoo, I got onto Groundbreaker in my second run. This time I took Ellie and Vicar as main companions instead of Parvati/Sam and I gotta say it's really cool how companions are integrated to locations. On the Groundbreaker there's much more banter and interactions with the NPCs coming from Ellie, because she's from there and knows everybody. Likewise, on previous run I took Nyoka on Monarch and as a local she was really useful and went as far as giving geographical tips on how to approach the key locations.

It's a shame that companions aside from Sam and Vicar are so shit. Otherwise I dare to say this level of companion interactivity would be the best in the genre.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Anyhoo, I got onto Groundbreaker in my second run. This time I took Ellie and Vicar as main companions instead of Parvati/Sam and I gotta say it's really cool how companions are integrated to locations. On the Groundbreaker there's much more banter and interactions with the NPCs coming from Ellie, because she's from there and knows everybody. Likewise, on previous run I took Nyoka on Monarch and she was really useful and went as far as giving geographical tips on how to approach the key locations.

It's a shame that companions aside from Sam and Vicar are so shit. Otherwise I dare to say this level of companion interactivity would be the best in the genre.
The game has great reactivity in general.
Anyone who played without companions really did themselves a disservice IMO. If you hate most of them just play with Max and SAM.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
Herp derp muh politics.

Guess which recently released game is very highly regarded among the locals? Disco Elysium. A game made by literal communists and brimming with politics. And it doesn't even have combat! The Codex should hate it for being a subversive leftie game!

But no, it's actually good. I'm as far to the right as you can be, which is as far away ideologically from the writers of that game as you can be... yet I love it, even though it somewhat misrepresents fascism.

Why do people love the game then? Because it doesn't openly push an agenda. It lets the player choose what his character thinks and does and feels. You don't get canned opinions and worldviews shoved down your throat. NPCs are written like actual people who have a history and a personality rather than just being sounding boards for political opinions, or walking stereotypes like "STRONG WARRIOR" and "TRICKSTER THIEF".

It's not about which politics are appealing to us and which aren't. It's whether the game's themes, writing, quests, and gameplay are designed well or not, and which stances the game allows you to take.

In a role playing game, I should be allowed to agree or disagree with any position offered to me by NPCs. Because it's, you know, a role playing game. You decide what character to play. If the developers decide for you what your character should be, the game just became less of an RPG for it.

If those SJW cunts had any kind of talent and all and would deliver a genuinely good game, I could even look past them pushing their shitty ideology into it.
But they can't.
They just write hacky shit that's supposed to sound more clever than it actually is, and recycle tired stereotypes because they're not creative enough to come up with their own ideas.
And their solution to "changing the face of gaming" towards something more "inclusive" doesn't entail adding cool new things of their own, no, it's all about avoiding to do the things that are toxic and bad.
No brothels! No damsels in distress! No buff Conanesque strongmen! No sexualized warrior chicks like Red Sonya either!
Ok, but... what are they actually replacing these things with? They replace them with the same stereotypes, except with reversed roles. Now it's the strong butch dyke woman rescuing the soyboy in distress, which is just as trite and boring a cliche as the buff barbarian rescuing the fair maiden. It's not creative, it's boring and predictable.

It's not specifically about the politics. It's that these people have no idea how to creatively express their ideas. And that is largely the fault of their education and surroundings.

Don't misrepresent things, PLENTY of codexers absolutely despise the garbage that is DE. I'd venture to say more people dislike DE or are neutral about it than people who do like it. It's not even an RPG for god's sake.

I used to think you were based, Jarl. What happened? :(
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Anyhoo, I got onto Groundbreaker in my second run. This time I took Ellie and Vicar as main companions instead of Parvati/Sam and I gotta say it's really cool how companions are integrated to locations. On the Groundbreaker there's much more banter and interactions with the NPCs coming from Ellie, because she's from there and knows everybody. Likewise, on previous run I took Nyoka on Monarch and as a local she was really useful and went as far as giving geographical tips on how to approach the key locations.

It's a shame that companions aside from Sam and Vicar are so shit. Otherwise I dare to say this level of companion interactivity would be the best in the genre.
do i lose much by going solo?
In addition to what he stated, they also actively participate in conversations, and not just a few interjections throughout the game. They typically have something to say about, well, everything.
 

frajaq

Erudite
Joined
Oct 5, 2017
Messages
2,402
Location
Brazil
Is there any decent reason to turn in the doctor for the bounty, even though he was the only one responsible for releasing you from cryo stasis? A reason that is not "lol I'm playing an evil character this time"?
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Is there any decent reason to turn in the doctor for the bounty, even though he was the only one responsible for releasing you from cryo stasis? A reason that is not "lol I'm playing an evil character this time"?
a) you're playing a greedy character and it's a really, really big bounty
b) you're playing a lawful character
 

krilcebre

Learned
Joined
Oct 13, 2018
Messages
146
How does stealth work with companions? I was doing a lone wolf playthrough, but decided I'll restart for the companion run instead.
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
It is bad that people think they can follow a template based on an old game and expect it to be good.

And yet every Eurojank shovelware is praised around here as long as it stays close enough to BG or Fallout templates from 25 years ago.
Any examples of that?
Pathfinder and ATOM respectively.
Neither are eurojank, pathfinder in particular is a game of a greater magnitude and quality than original BG, and especially a far greater quality and magnitude than it's contemporaries. Those games are successful because they are FAR above their competition, not because they are based on some template.
 

Riddler

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 5, 2009
Messages
2,355
Bubbles In Memoria
Is there any decent reason to turn in the doctor for the bounty, even though he was the only one responsible for releasing you from cryo stasis? A reason that is not "lol I'm playing an evil character this time"?

No.
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
The thing is, people that have been catered to suddenly find out that the entire world is not comprised of people like them and they got cranky. All the while not realizing that companies do continue to cater to them because they are the majority, it's just not all the time with everything ever like it was before, companies will not compromise profit for ideology, they know what to target and how to target it.

Deadfire flopped and TOW is being sold for 1 dollar...
 

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